"barbarian" is not releated to "beard"
Bob Cunningham
A recent comment in AUE suggests that remarks about the etymology of
"barbarian" are in order.
It's a common misconception that "barbarian" has something to do with
beards. Dictionaries give an entirely different etymology: They say it
may have come from mocking references to the speech of foreigners, which
sounded to somebody like stammering. The "barbar" part was an imitation
of stammering.
For example, _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ has:
barbarous
Etymology: Latin barbarus, from Greek _barbaros_ foreign,
rude, ignorant; perhaps akin to Sanskrit _barbara_
stammering, non-Aryan * more at BABBLE
Anyone who wants to argue the position that "barbarian" has something to
do with beards needs to find an ancient Greek word meaning "beard" that
"barbarian" could have come from. I think I've read that there was no
such word.
Lars Eighner
the lovely and talented Bob Cunningham broadcast on
alt.usage.english:
> Anyone who wants to argue the position that "barbarian" has something to
> do with beards needs to find an ancient Greek word meaning "beard" that
> "barbarian" could have come from. I think I've read that there was no
> such word.
Well then, does "beard" which traces to OHG "barba," come from
"barbarian"? You've shown it isn't the one way round, but what
of the other?
--
Lars Eighner -finger for geek code- eig...@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
Never purchase beauty products in a hardware store. --Miss Piggy
Eric Walker
[...]
>Well then, does "beard" which traces to OHG "barba," come from
>"barbarian"? You've shown it isn't the one way round, but
>what of the other?
The OED says at "beard":
Common Teut.: OE. _beard_ (:--earlier _*bard_, _*baerd_)
= MDu. _baert_, Du. _baard_, OHG., mod.G _bart_, ON
_baror_ retained only in comp. as _Langbaror_ (but cogn.
with _baro_ neuter, 'brim, edge, beak, prow' whence sense
11 below):-- OTeut. _barde-z_ (not known in Gothic); cogn.
w. OSlav. _barda_ beard. Kinship to L. _barba_ is, on
phonetic grounds, doubtful. As to identity of OE. and mod.
spelling see BEACON.
Notes:
1. In the ON, the character I rendered as <o> is not something
on my keyboard.
2. The "sense 11" referred to is a use of "beard" in ship-
building jargon (and that of other "mechanical arts").
An interesting side note: the English word "bizarre" appears
likely derived from the Basque "bizarra," meaning _bearded_.
If so, I would guess it's one of the few English words derived
from Basque.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
Owlcroft House
Bob Cunningham
>In our last episode, <d1s2au8fptbr3tu7u...@4ax.com>,
>the lovely and talented Bob Cunningham broadcast on
>alt.usage.english:
>> Anyone who wants to argue the position that "barbarian" has something to
>> do with beards needs to find an ancient Greek word meaning "beard" that
>> "barbarian" could have come from. I think I've read that there was no
>> such word.
>Well then, does "beard" which traces to OHG "barba," come from
>"barbarian"? You've shown it isn't the one way round, but what
>of the other?
Not only that, but what about Latin "barba", meaning "beard"?
Did the Romans inherit "barbarian" from Greek? Then did the word "barba",
for "beard", evolve from "barbarian" because the barbarians had beards?
Then did Old High German adopt the word from Latin?
It all seems possible, but who knows?
The English word "beard" itself is a cousin of Latin "barba". From
_Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ (_W3NID_).
Main Entry: 1 beard
[...]
Etymology:Middle English _berd_, from Old English _beard_;
akin to Old High German _bart_ beard, Latin _barba_, Old
Slavic _brada_
There's also an obsolete, rare meaning of the English word "barb": "the
beard of a man". That meaning is in _The Oxford English Dictionary_, but
not in _W3NID_.
meirman
<exw...@earthlink.net> posted:
>On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 07:44:36 GMT, Lars Eighner <eig...@io.com> said:
>
>>In our last episode, <d1s2au8fptbr3tu7u...@4ax.com>,
>>the lovely and talented Bob Cunningham broadcast on
>>alt.usage.english:
>
>>> Anyone who wants to argue the position that "barbarian" has something to
>>> do with beards needs to find an ancient Greek word meaning "beard" that
>>> "barbarian" could have come from. I think I've read that there was no
>>> such word.
>
>>Well then, does "beard" which traces to OHG "barba," come from
>>"barbarian"? You've shown it isn't the one way round, but what
>>of the other?
>
>Not only that, but what about Latin "barba", meaning "beard"?
>
>Did the Romans inherit "barbarian" from Greek? Then did the word "barba",
>for "beard", evolve from "barbarian" because the barbarians had beards?
>Then did Old High German adopt the word from Latin?
>
>It all seems possible, but who knows?
There are certainly words in German which came from Latin
And my Latin teacher, who was the best teacher I ever had, I think,
said (no source given) that it was the barbarians who Rome came in
contact with. He made no mention of Greeks, and I think he would
have. So maybe the Romans took the Greek work barbar...whatever and
tied their beards to the word. AIUI according to my Latin teacher,
Romans didn't wear beards. (I don't know about Greeks but if if they
didn't eeither and the barbarians were the only ones Romans met who
did, the more likely they would be to mix the terms together.
>The English word "beard" itself is a cousin of Latin "barba". From
>_Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ (_W3NID_).
>
> Main Entry: 1 beard
> [...]
> Etymology:Middle English _berd_, from Old English _beard_;
> akin to Old High German _bart_ beard, Latin _barba_, Old
> Slavic _brada_
What does "akin" mean. I've taken it to mean they share some common
origin, or is it only that they think they do, and is that the same
thing? In other words, is this a firm link between the two, or are
they only pointing out a similarity.
Straying to a new topic: Archaeologist and paleontologisst and
anthropologists have been know to say something IS when really they
only think it is, isn't that true?
>There's also an obsolete, rare meaning of the English word "barb": "the
>beard of a man". That meaning is in _The Oxford English Dictionary_, but
>not in _W3NID_.
s/ meirman If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
Baltimore 17 years
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>
>A recent comment in AUE suggests that remarks about the etymology of
>"barbarian" are in order.
>
>It's a common misconception that "barbarian" has something to do with
>beards. Dictionaries give an entirely different etymology: They say it
>may have come from mocking references to the speech of foreigners, which
>sounded to somebody like stammering. The "barbar" part was an imitation
>of stammering.
As in
Bar bar bar bar bar bar barberann (The Beach Boys)
Unless someone thinks Barbara was the bearded lady at the circus.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
John Dean
"Bob Cunningham" <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:trj3au4qjbbs648vp...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 07:44:36 GMT, Lars Eighner <eig...@io.com> said:
>
> >In our last episode, <d1s2au8fptbr3tu7u...@4ax.com>,
> >the lovely and talented Bob Cunningham broadcast on
> >alt.usage.english:
>
> >> Anyone who wants to argue the position that "barbarian" has something
to
> >> do with beards needs to find an ancient Greek word meaning "beard" that
> >> "barbarian" could have come from. I think I've read that there was no
> >> such word.
>
>
> _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ (_W3NID_).
>
> Main Entry: 1 beard
> [...]
> Etymology:Middle English _berd_, from Old English _beard_;
> akin to Old High German _bart_ beard, Latin _barba_, Old
> Slavic _brada_
>
Though OED2 says 'Kinship to L. barba is, on phonetic grounds, doubtful'
--
John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply
Donna Richoux
> In alt.english.usage on Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:21:25 GMT Bob Cunningham
> <exw...@earthlink.net> posted:
> >The English word "beard" itself is a cousin of Latin "barba". From
> >_Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ (_W3NID_).
> >
> > Main Entry: 1 beard
> > [...]
> > Etymology:Middle English _berd_, from Old English _beard_;
> > akin to Old High German _bart_ beard, Latin _barba_, Old
> > Slavic _brada_
>
> What does "akin" mean. I've taken it to mean they share some common
> origin, or is it only that they think they do, and is that the same
> thing? In other words, is this a firm link between the two, or are
> they only pointing out a similarity.
No, they believe there is a firm historical link: "descended from a
common ancestor". They do not mean, "Hey, those sorta look the same,
doncha think?"
>
> Straying to a new topic: Archaeologist and paleontologisst and
> anthropologists have been know to say something IS when really they
> only think it is, isn't that true?
Well, why would they say something IS if they didn't think it was? Or if
they never thought at all? Thinking is required before speech --
usually. Do you want to encourage scholars to speak without thinking?
I know this isn't what you meant. I mean, I think I know this isn't what
you meant. I mean, I know that I think that I know that I think what you
mean. But is that "only thinking"?
What you want to do (I think!) is talk about the difference between
thinking something is true and knowing it is true. Gooooood luck. Pack a
lunch.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Bob Cunningham
>In alt.english.usage on Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:21:25 GMT Bob Cunningham
><exw...@earthlink.net> posted:
>>On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 07:44:36 GMT, Lars Eighner <eig...@io.com> said:
>>>In our last episode, <d1s2au8fptbr3tu7u...@4ax.com>,
>>>the lovely and talented Bob Cunningham broadcast on
>>>alt.usage.english:
>>>> Anyone who wants to argue the position that "barbarian" has something to
>>>> do with beards needs to find an ancient Greek word meaning "beard" that
>>>> "barbarian" could have come from. I think I've read that there was no
>>>> such word.
>>>Well then, does "beard" which traces to OHG "barba," come from
>>>"barbarian"? You've shown it isn't the one way round, but what
>>>of the other?
>>Not only that, but what about Latin "barba", meaning "beard"?
>>Did the Romans inherit "barbarian" from Greek? Then did the word "barba",
>>for "beard", evolve from "barbarian" because the barbarians had beards?
>>Then did Old High German adopt the word from Latin?
>>It all seems possible, but who knows?
>There are certainly words in German which came from Latin
>And my Latin teacher, who was the best teacher I ever had, I think,
>said (no source given) that it was the barbarians who Rome came in
>contact with. He made no mention of Greeks, and I think he would
>have.
I think Rome conquered Greece. I've read about Romans having Greek slaves
who were intellectually superior to their masters and from whom the
masters learned much.
>So maybe the Romans took the Greek work barbar...whatever and
>tied their beards to the word. AIUI according to my Latin teacher,
>Romans didn't wear beards. (I don't know about Greeks but if if they
>didn't eeither and the barbarians were the only ones Romans met who
>did, the more likely they would be to mix the terms together.
I don't think it was a matter of mixing two terms together. I think that
in Latin there was first the word "barbarus" from Greek "barbaros" meaning
"foreign, rude, ignorant". Then the Romans called the northern tribes
barbarians, and because the barbarians had beards the word "barba" meaning
"beard" arose. According to this theory there would have been no word
"barba" in Latin before the word "barbarus" was in use to refer to their
foes.
>>The English word "beard" itself is a cousin of Latin "barba". From
>>_Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ (_W3NID_).
>> Main Entry: 1 beard
>> [...]
>> Etymology:Middle English _berd_, from Old English _beard_;
>> akin to Old High German _bart_ beard, Latin _barba_, Old
>> Slavic _brada_
>What does "akin" mean. I've taken it to mean they share some common
>origin, or is it only that they think they do, and is that the same
>thing? In other words, is this a firm link between the two, or are
>they only pointing out a similarity.
I think "akin" in a linguistic context means the same as "cognate". In
fact, _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ under
"akin"/"language" gives "cognate" as a synonym of "akin".
They say that "cognate", as applied to words, can mean descended from a
common parent or can mean that the words represent borrowing from one
language to another.
It seems to me there would be no value in a dictionary etymology pointing
out mere similarity between words.
By the way, I suppose I shouldn't have said in my subject line
"'barbarian' is not related to 'beard'". They're probably related in the
sense that a Latin word for "beard", "barba", probably came from
"barbarian". My intended meaning was that the word "barbarian" itself
didn't come from anything having to do with beards.
Anyway, what does "related to" mean? Was my father related to me before I
was born? (I hope no one will address that question in a spiritual sense;
I don't believe in spooks.)
Robert Bannister
And yet the people with the long beards who crossed the Alps were called
Langobardo with a D.
--
Rob Bannister
Alan Jones
"John Dean" <john...@frag.lineone.net> wrote in message
news:a7t2fd$dbi$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
> > _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ (_W3NID_).
> >
> > Main Entry: 1 beard
> > [...]
> > Etymology:Middle English _berd_, from Old English _beard_;
> > akin to Old High German _bart_ beard, Latin _barba_, Old
> > Slavic _brada_
>
> Though OED2 says 'Kinship to L. barba is, on phonetic grounds, doubtful'
The whole OED2 etymological note on "barbarian" and related words is worth
reading. I was surprised to discover that "barbarous"/"barbarian" came so
late into English. Someone cited the rare word "barb[e]" for beard; this is
from French, itself from Latin "barba"=beard.
Perhaps some Romans made an illicit connection between "barba" and
"barbarus", though any educated Roman with a solid knowledge of Greek would
have known better. The word for "bearded" is "barbatus", and the 't' makes
the two words easily separable. The meaning of "barbarus" is essentially
"foreign", and it was used by Romans themselves for Latin when writing of
translations; Greek was rendered into the "lingua barbara" of Latin, and to
speak Latin could be described as speaking "barbare" - in the manner of a
foreigner. I have read somewhere that educated Romans familiarly spoke
Greek, just as the Russian nobility spoke French among themselves. Cicero's
private letters switch between Latin and Greek apparently without any
special reason - he just slips casually from one to the other. Caesar's
dying words are recorded as Greek: not Shakespeare's "Et tu, Brute" but "Kai
su, teknon?" - You too, son? So I think educated people knew too much Greek
to have connected "barba" and "barbarus".
Any connection of Greek "barbaros" with beard is, to put it mildly,
unlikely: the Greek for beard is "pogon".
Off-topic a little, but someone said he'd been taught that Romans were
clean-shaven. Statuary, coins and the few surviving paintings show that
there was a fashion for shaving among the well-to-do in the "classical"
period of people like Caesar and Cicero, but beards were grown in the
earlier years of the Republic and in the later Empire: Marcus Aurelius was
grandly bearded in the Greek fashion, and he was far from barbarous.
Alan Jones
Kathy Makus
> There's also an obsolete, rare meaning of the English word "barb": "the
> beard of a man". That meaning is in _The Oxford English Dictionary_,
but
> not in _W3NID_.
I wonder what word they used for the beard of a woman?
Kathy Makus
Bob Cunningham
said:
>Bob Cunningham wrote:
It's tempting to suspect that "langobardo" has something to do with long
beards, but there doesn't seem to be a Latin root "bard-" having to do
with beards. The only "bard-" word in my Latin dictionary is "bardus",
meaning "stupid, dull of comprehension". Also there doesn't appear to be
a Latin root "lang-" having to do with length.
The Perseus Tufts site (thanks to Donna for a marvelous link) also has
"bardus" referring to a singer -- English "bard" -- but still no
beard-related "bard-".
All of the hits at Perseus Tufts on "lang" have to do with language,
languor, languid, languish, and so forth. A Latin word for "long" is
"longus".
The _Encyclopedia Britannica_ confirms that the Romans called the Lombards
"langobardi" (singular "langobardus"). Now we need someone to tell us why
they did. Was it an outright borrowing of a name the Lombards used for
themselves in the early days? Does the "bard" in "langobardus" pertain to
a Germanic rather than a Latin root for "beard"?
The online _Oxford English Dictionary_ has in the etymology of "beard" the
tantalizing remark:
ON. *bar[{edh}]r retained only in comp[ounds] as Langbar[{edh}]r
where "edh" stands for the "crossed-d" symbol corresponding to the "th" in
English "other".
Can anyone tell us what significance "Langbarther" may have had for an Old
Norseman? Is it somehow related to "Langobard"?
Bob Cunningham
said:
:)
Are you forgetting that a recent statistical analysis that was
participated in by a number of AUE contributors proved beyond doubt that
women have no beards, as well as proving that all Australian males have
beards while all American children do not?
On a more serious note, "the beard of a man" in _OED_ is in contrast to a
second definition of "barb": "A similar appendage in various animals".
Richard Fontana
> On Thu, 28 Mar 2002 09:39:43 +0800, Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au>
> said:
>
> >And yet the people with the long beards who crossed the Alps were called
> >Langobardo with a D.
>
> It's tempting to suspect that "langobardo" has something to do with long
> beards, but there doesn't seem to be a Latin root "bard-" having to do
> with beards. The only "bard-" word in my Latin dictionary is "bardus",
> meaning "stupid, dull of comprehension". Also there doesn't appear to be
> a Latin root "lang-" having to do with length.
AHD says:
Lombard, from Latin compound Longobardus, Langobardus (with Germanic
ethnic name *Bardi) ... from Germanic *langaz "long".
The name of the tribe would seem to have been borrowed from
Germanic, with some Latinization. You'd think if "Bardi"
were known to have meant "bearded ones" AHD would have said so.
(This was taken from the Appendix entry for the Proto-Indo-European
root del-(1), which is the ancestor of both English "long" and
English words derived from Latin "longus".)
"Beard" comes from Germanic *bardaz, a cognate of Latin barba. So
while *Bardi might have nothing to do with *bardaz, there is some
similarity between the two words.
j...@radidelmex.net
> It's a common misconception that "barbarian" has something to do with
> beards. Dictionaries give an entirely different etymology: They say it
> may have come from mocking references to the speech of foreigners, which
> sounded to somebody like stammering. The "barbar" part was an imitation
> of stammering.
> For example, _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ has:
> barbarous
> Etymology: Latin barbarus, from Greek _barbaros_ foreign,
> rude, ignorant; perhaps akin to Sanskrit _barbara_
> stammering, non-Aryan * more at BABBLE
I had always heard that the ancient Greeks considered anyone who couldn't
speak Greek uncultured, a barbarian. It had nothing to do with beards,
which were common enough at the time.
Matti Lamprhey
>
> AHD says:
>
> Lombard, from Latin compound Longobardus, Langobardus (with Germanic
> ethnic name *Bardi) ... from Germanic *langaz "long".
Actually this was one of the earliest acronyms. "Loads of money, but a real
dickhead". I'm sure Garry will back me up here.
Matti
Bob Cunningham
>AHD says:
But let's not forget that, as Alan Jones has pointed out, the online
_Oxford English Dictionary_ says in the etymology of "beard":
Kinship to L. barba is, on phonetic grounds, doubtful.
Donna Richoux
> And yet the people with the long beards who crossed the Alps were called
> Langobardo with a D.
At other times we've looked into what the Romans called the various
peoples they encountered (and fought and assimilated and so on), and it
looks like they fairly often based their name for a tribal group on what
the people called themselves, or maybe what another group called them.
They were not constantly coining brand-new names. So neither "long" nor
"bard" would have to be Latin elements.
Now that Bob ties this to "Lombardy," I look at that up in Brewer's
Names. It says the Roman name for these people was Langobardus. It says
some authorities believe it came from the Germanic "long" and the
Germanic "bard" for beard, and other authorities think it is from the
Germanic "long" and the Germanic "bartha," axe.
Brewer's editor comments, "Either name is intimidating."
Polar
Depilatory-challenged?
--
Polar
Mickwick
>Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> wrote:
>> And yet the people with the long beards who crossed the Alps were called
>> Langobardo with a D.
John Julius Norwich tells a thread-linking story of how they arrived in
Italy.
'There is a venerable legend according to which the Lombards had been
invited into Italy by Narses [the tiny elderly eunuch who commanded the
Roman armies in Italy] in revenge for an insult that he had received
from the Empress Sophia who, so the story goes, had sent him a distaff
in a pointed reference to his emasculation. "I will weave her such a
skein," the old eunuch is said to have muttered, "that she will not
unravel in her lifetime." It is a good story -- but, alas, nothing
more.'
[...]
>Now that Bob ties this to "Lombardy," I look at that up in Brewer's
>Names. It says the Roman name for these people was Langobardus. It says
>some authorities believe it came from the Germanic "long" and the
>Germanic "bard" for beard, and other authorities think it is from the
>Germanic "long" and the Germanic "bartha," axe.
Edward Gibbon thought that the name referred to their beards.
Of their appearance, he wrote that 'Their heads were shaven behind, but
the shaggy locks hung over their eyes and mouth, and a long beard
represented the name and character of the nation. Their dress consisted
of loose linen garments, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxons, which
were decorated, in their opinion, with broad stripes of variegated
colours. The legs and feet were clothed in long hose and open sandals,
and even in the security of peace a trusty sword [not 'axe'] was
constantly girt to their side.'
And in a section dealing with falconry, which had been introduced to
Rome by the Lombards and other, erm, barbarians, he wrote that 'the
sixteenth law of the emperor Lewis the Pious' 'esteem[s] the sword and
the hawk as of equal dignity and importance in the hands of a noble
Lombard.'
But I admit that this doesn't prove very much either way. Perhaps they
used axes at an earlier stage in their history, for example. Or perhaps
Gibbon nodded.
>Brewer's editor comments, "Either name is intimidating."
Intimidating name, intimidating people. Gibbon again: 'Fierce beyond the
example of the Germans, they delighted to propagate the tremendous
belief that their heads were formed like the heads of dogs, and that
they drank the blood of their enemies whom they vanquished in battle.'
--
Mickwick
Bob Cunningham
>Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> wrote:
But _The American Heritage Dictionary_ in both the third and fourth
editions has in its Indo-European roots section:
f. LOMBARD , from Latin compound Longobardus , Langobardus
(with Germanic ethnic name *Bardi ). a, b, c, d, e, and f
all from Germanic *langaz , long.
I'm not sure what they mean by "ethnic name", but I suppose they mean
there was a people with that name as opposed to a person with that ethnic
name. I'm also assuming the asterisk means the term is inferred rather
than attested.
I think someone else (Alan Jones?) may have cited that reference recently.
Kathy Makus
> On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 19:10:05 -0800, "Kathy Makus" <kdm...@colfax.com>
> said:
>
> >"Bob Cunningham" <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> >news:trj3au4qjbbs648vp...@4ax.com...
>
> >> There's also an obsolete, rare meaning of the English word "barb":
> >> "the beard of a man". That meaning is in _The Oxford English
> >> Dictionary_, but not in _W3NID_.
>
> >I wonder what word they used for the beard of a woman?
>
> :)
>
> Are you forgetting that a recent statistical analysis that was
> participated in by a number of AUE contributors proved beyond doubt that
> women have no beards, as well as proving that all Australian males have
> beards while all American children do not?
The analysis only proved that no AUE women have beards. It's possible that
this is a self-selecting sample, and that bearded women choose other, more
congenial newsgroups. Whatever happened to the "bearded ladies" who were a
popular circus side-show freak attraction? Surely, in this day of "love
yourself as you are," they don't all use depilatories or hormones.
> On a more serious note, "the beard of a man" in _OED_ is in contrast to
a
> second definition of "barb": "A similar appendage in various animals".
Ah, perhaps that's the answer. In those obsolete times, women were
probably considered "various animals."
Kathy Makus
Eric Walker
Chaucer covered the topic, I believe.
Charles Riggs
Yes, indeed, although he didn't exactly name it.
"Derk was the nyght as pich, or as the cole,
And at the wyndow out she putte hir hole,
And Absolon, jym fil no bet be wers,
But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers
Ful Savourly, er he were war of this.
Abak he stirte, and thoughte it was amys,
For wel he wiste a womman hath no berd.
He felte a thyng al rough and long yherd,
And seyde, 'Fy! allas! what have I to do?'
'Tehee!' quod she, and clapte the wydnow to.
The Canterbury Tales, _The Miller's Tale_
Charles Riggs
meirman
tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) posted:
>meirman <mei...@invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> In alt.english.usage on Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:21:25 GMT Bob Cunningham
>> <exw...@earthlink.net> posted:
>
>> >The English word "beard" itself is a cousin of Latin "barba". From
>> >_Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ (_W3NID_).
>> >
>> > Main Entry: 1 beard
>> > [...]
>> > Etymology:Middle English _berd_, from Old English _beard_;
>> > akin to Old High German _bart_ beard, Latin _barba_, Old
>> > Slavic _brada_
>>
>> What does "akin" mean. I've taken it to mean they share some common
>> origin, or is it only that they think they do, and is that the same
>> thing? In other words, is this a firm link between the two, or are
>> they only pointing out a similarity.
>
>No, they believe there is a firm historical link: "descended from a
>common ancestor". They do not mean, "Hey, those sorta look the same,
>doncha think?"
>>
>> Straying to a new topic: Archaeologist and paleontologisst and
>> anthropologists have been know to say something IS when really they
>> only think it is, isn't that true?
Well, I didn't mean those two choices. More like: I think they are
related based on strong clues versus I think they are based on clues
for which we can think of only one interpretation (that they are
related.)
>
>Well, why would they say something IS if they didn't think it was? Or if
>they never thought at all? Thinking is required before speech --
>usually. Do you want to encourage scholars to speak without thinking?
>
>I know this isn't what you meant. I mean, I think I know this isn't what
>you meant. I mean, I know that I think that I know that I think what you
>mean. But is that "only thinking"?
>
>What you want to do (I think!) is talk about the difference between
>thinking something is true and knowing it is true. Gooooood luck. Pack a
>lunch.
Yes. Sometimes I don't think I know how convincing their evidence is
when they say something. That would be true, of course, even if they
used the word "probably", but it seems more important when I don't
hear that word. For example, I know of a finding that certain people
lived somewhere starting on a certain date. Later they changed the
date to 300 yaars earlier. I don't know how firmly the scientists
described it, but I know how certainly some reader of the first report
described it (too certainly). I'm curious if he was exaaggerating
what they said or just quoting them.
meirman
<a...@blueyonder.co.uk> posted:
>
>"John Dean" <john...@frag.lineone.net> wrote in message
>news:a7t2fd$dbi$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
>>
>> "Bob Cunningham" <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>> news:trj3au4qjbbs648vp...@4ax.com...
>> > The English word "beard" itself is a cousin of Latin "barba". From
>> > _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ (_W3NID_).
>> >
>> > Main Entry: 1 beard
>> > [...]
>> > Etymology:Middle English _berd_, from Old English _beard_;
>> > akin to Old High German _bart_ beard, Latin _barba_, Old
>> > Slavic _brada_
>>
>> Though OED2 says 'Kinship to L. barba is, on phonetic grounds, doubtful'
>
>The whole OED2 etymological note on "barbarian" and related words is worth
>reading. I was surprised to discover that "barbarous"/"barbarian" came so
>late into English. Someone cited the rare word "barb[e]" for beard; this is
>from French, itself from Latin "barba"=beard.
>
>Perhaps some Romans made an illicit connection between "barba" and
>"barbarus", though any educated Roman with a solid knowledge of Greek would
>have known better. The word for "bearded" is "barbatus", and the 't' makes
>the two words easily separable.
To add a litte, that's one form of the root. There is also the
adjective barbiger,-gera,-gerum; wearing a beard. A G is not an R
but it's not a T either.
Furthermore, barbarus could have meant foreign, while barba came to
mean beard.
[repeated]
>Perhaps some Romans made an illicit connection between "barba" and
>"barbarus", though any educated Roman with a solid knowledge of Greek would
>have known better.
Just guesses, but might it not have been coined from barbarus and not
been an illicit connection between two existing words. Maybe they had
an awkward construction for beard before, or for any reason barba
drove any prior expression out of use. Would they only have come in
contact with the barbarians when they invaded or fought with them, or
was there some border area before that.
My first real introduction to figures of speech was in Latin class and
in the list of those somewhere iirc is naming something small after
something big that contains it. The only example I can think of now
where the word gets shortened is Tex-Mex food.... How about "fan",
short for "fanatic", but I never saw the relationship until it was
pointed out?
> The meaning of "barbarus" is essentially
>"foreign", and it was used by Romans themselves for Latin when writing of
>translations; Greek was rendered into the "lingua barbara" of Latin, and to
>speak Latin could be described as speaking "barbare" - in the manner of a
>foreigner. I have read somewhere that educated Romans familiarly spoke
>Greek, just as the Russian nobility spoke French among themselves. Cicero's
>private letters switch between Latin and Greek apparently without any
>special reason - he just slips casually from one to the other. Caesar's
>dying words are recorded as Greek: not Shakespeare's "Et tu, Brute" but "Kai
>su, teknon?" - You too, son? So I think educated people knew too much Greek
>to have connected "barba" and "barbarus".
Doesn't that problem rely on barba being a pre-existing word and not
one coined from barbarus. Yes Greeks were barbarus too and they
didn't have beards I guess (Is this true of the Spartans and the West
Coast (Adriatic) Greeks too.?)
>
>Any connection of Greek "barbaros" with beard is, to put it mildly,
>unlikely: the Greek for beard is "pogon".
I was about to ask that. (If Latin used that word too, perhaps we'd
be debating the relationship with pagan!)
>Off-topic a little, but someone said he'd been taught that Romans were
>clean-shaven. Statuary, coins and the few surviving paintings show that
>there was a fashion for shaving among the well-to-do in the "classical"
>period of people like Caesar and Cicero, but beards were grown in the
>earlier years of the Republic and in the later Empire: Marcus Aurelius was
>grandly bearded in the Greek fashion, and he was far from barbarous.
That was I, and I think that weakens my guess very much.
>Alan Jones
meirman
<exw...@earthlink.net> posted:
>On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 19:10:05 -0800, "Kathy Makus" <kdm...@colfax.com>
>said:
>
>>"Bob Cunningham" <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>>news:trj3au4qjbbs648vp...@4ax.com...
>
>>> There's also an obsolete, rare meaning of the English word "barb":
>>> "the beard of a man". That meaning is in _The Oxford English
>>> Dictionary_, but not in _W3NID_.
>
>>I wonder what word they used for the beard of a woman?
>
>:)
>
>Are you forgetting that a recent statistical analysis that was
>participated in by a number of AUE contributors proved beyond doubt that
>women have no beards, as well as proving that all Australian males have
>beards while all American children do not?
I guess some of those women at side-shows were not fakes. I knew a
woman in her 20's who had hair maybe 3/8" long or more spread
consistently though much of the area a man would have a beard. The
face but not the neck iirc, and not as high or as low on the jaw. Even
where the hair was, you could see most of her skin but there were
hundreds of hairs, it wasn't just a little moustache which a few have
and which doesn't even look so bad. And she wasn't very dark-haired
or dark-skinned even for a white person (she was white).
She was heavy while her sister was the right weight, dark haired,
clear complexion, and quite cute. It must have been hard for both of
them. I wonder if she had been thinner if she would have found the
money for electrolysis, or if it was the other way around.
>On a more serious note, "the beard of a man" in _OED_ is in contrast to a
>second definition of "barb": "A similar appendage in various animals".
Aha.
Alan Jones
"meirman" <mei...@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:nu8dau03iqgfgvvq0...@4ax.com...
> In alt.english.usage on Thu, 28 Mar 2002 07:49:34 GMT "Alan Jones"
> <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> posted:
> >Perhaps some Romans made an illicit connection between "barba" and
> >"barbarus", though any educated Roman with a solid knowledge of Greek
would
> >have known better. The word for "bearded" is "barbatus", and the 't'
makes
> >the two words easily separable.
>
> To add a litte, that's one form of the root. There is also the
> adjective barbiger,-gera,-gerum; wearing a beard. A G is not an R
> but it's not a T either.
"Barbiger" is a compound. The "-ger" is from the verb "gero", of which the
relevant sense here is "wear". Not owning a copy of Lewis & Short, I have no
useful citation for "barbiger", but conceivably it implies the deliberate
cultivation of a beard e.g. as an assertion of status rather than simply
letting nature take its course. (The one citation I found - unfortunately
context-free - is from the the early poet Lucretius, and there it may be a
word he coined for the sake of scansion; it's a self-contained dactyl.).
"Barbatus" is a simple word, not a compound, and merely states a fact.
> Furthermore, barbarus could have meant foreign, while barba came to
> mean beard.
But then you would have to account for the Greek "barbaros", from which the
Latin is directly derived and which certainly has nothing to do with beards.
>
[...]
>
> Just guesses, but might it [scil. 'barba'] not have been coined from
barbarus and not
> been an illicit connection between two existing words. Maybe they had
> an awkward construction for beard before, or for any reason barba
> drove any prior expression out of use. Would they only have come in
> contact with the barbarians when they invaded or fought with them, or
> was there some border area before that.
This would require (a) evidence of an earlier expression for 'beard', and a
Roman association between being a barbarian (a foreigner, or more exactly
one whose native language is not Greek - later to "not Greek or Latin") and
having a beard.
>
> My first real introduction to figures of speech was in Latin class and
> in the list of those somewhere iirc is naming something small after
> something big that contains it. The only example I can think of now
> where the word gets shortened is Tex-Mex food.... How about "fan",
> short for "fanatic", but I never saw the relationship until it was
> pointed out?
[...]
> Yes Greeks were barbarus too and they
> didn't have beards I guess (Is this true of the Spartans and the West
> Coast (Adriatic) Greeks too.?)
By definition a Greek could not be "barbaros", since its central meaning is
"not having Greek as one's native language". Older Athenians did have
beards, judging by their statues. I doin't know much about the Spartans,
except that they had long hair. One needs to remember that shaving was a
painful and fairly ineffectual process in the days before any metal could
AFAIK be given a really sharp edge. There were in Roman times some
unpleasant alternative to the razor - for example, singeing the hairs with
hot walnut shells (though I think that was for body hair, and presumably
required a remarkably dextrous barber).
Alan Jones
nimue
snip
> > >Perhaps some Romans made an illicit connection between "barba" and
> > >"barbarus", though any educated Roman with a solid knowledge of Greek
> would
> > >have known better. The word for "bearded" is "barbatus", and the 't'
> makes
> > >the two words easily separable.
> >
> > To add a litte, that's one form of the root. There is also the
> > adjective barbiger,-gera,-gerum; wearing a beard. A G is not an R
> > but it's not a T either.
>
> "Barbiger" is a compound. The "-ger" is from the verb "gero", of which the
> relevant sense here is "wear". Not owning a copy of Lewis & Short, I have
no
> useful citation for "barbiger", but conceivably it implies the deliberate
> cultivation of a beard e.g. as an assertion of status rather than simply
> letting nature take its course. (The one citation I found - unfortunately
> context-free - is from the the early poet Lucretius, and there it may be a
> word he coined for the sake of scansion; it's a self-contained dactyl.).
Okay. I have an off-topic, slightly related question for you. Why are you
putting commas and periods outside the quotation marks? According to
Webster's New World Guide To Punctuation,
commas and periods are ALWAYS placed INSIDE closing quotation marks. The
Handbook of Good English, by Edward D. Johnson, says, "commas and periods
always go within a closing quotation mark." That last sentence was an
example of this. The Well Tempered Sentence, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon,
says the same thing. Are they missing something? Let me know. BTW, I am
very impressed with your knowledge of Latin and Greek. I was told that the
word "barbarian" came from the sound the Romans made to imitate the
barbarians. The Romans thought that the barbarians speech sounded like
someone just saying, "bar bar bar," hence, barbarian. I now fear I was lied
to. Please address my puncutation/quotation mark question. Thank you!
nimue
>
meirman
<a...@blueyonder.co.uk> posted:
>
>"meirman" <mei...@invalid.com> wrote in message
>news:nu8dau03iqgfgvvq0...@4ax.com...
>> In alt.english.usage on Thu, 28 Mar 2002 07:49:34 GMT "Alan Jones"
>> <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> posted:
>[...]
>> >Perhaps some Romans made an illicit connection between "barba" and
>> >"barbarus", though any educated Roman with a solid knowledge of Greek
>would
>> >have known better. The word for "bearded" is "barbatus", and the 't'
>makes
>> >the two words easily separable.
>>
>> To add a litte, that's one form of the root. There is also the
>> adjective barbiger,-gera,-gerum; wearing a beard. A G is not an R
>> but it's not a T either.
>
>"Barbiger" is a compound. The "-ger" is from the verb "gero", of which the
Nonetheless, the second r in barbat- is lost in its formation, and
what's left, barb, is sufficient to convey the meaning of beard. Or
maybe it went in the opposite order. Barbaros was truncated to barba
with the meaning beard, and barbatus grew up just as people now seem
to say he "verbed" a noun. People add endings all the time and "atus"
was a popular ending, as in portatus. They are both for past
participles.
>relevant sense here is "wear". Not owning a copy of Lewis & Short, I have no
>useful citation for "barbiger", but conceivably it implies the deliberate
>cultivation of a beard e.g. as an assertion of status rather than simply
>letting nature take its course. (The one citation I found - unfortunately
>context-free - is from the the early poet Lucretius, and there it may be a
>word he coined for the sake of scansion; it's a self-contained dactyl.).
>"Barbatus" is a simple word, not a compound, and merely states a fact.
>
>> Furthermore, barbarus could have meant foreign, while barba came to
>> mean beard.
>
>But then you would have to account for the Greek "barbaros", from which the
>Latin is directly derived and which certainly has nothing to do with beards.
I'm not challenging that Latin got barbaros from Greek. Just
suggesting that after it did, the Romans came to use barba for beard.
Something, barely, like English getting "cub" from some foreign
language and then calling young campers "cub scouts".
>>
>[...]
>>
>> Just guesses, but might it [scil. 'barba'] not have been coined from
>barbarus and not
>> been an illicit connection between two existing words. Maybe they had
>> an awkward construction for beard before, or for any reason barba
>> drove any prior expression out of use. Would they only have come in
>> contact with the barbarians when they invaded or fought with them, or
>> was there some border area before that.
>
>This would require (a) evidence of an earlier expression for 'beard', and a
It bothers me when you say it would require evidence. I'm not trying
to prove one thing or another. I'm only giving suggestions. By
exalting evidence to the degree where, it seems, one doesn't even
consider possibililities where have some, it seems like something
false with a little evidence to support it wins out of something true
where no evidence has been found to support it. And for all I know
there is evidence. I'm in no position to have any, and you might not
know of it either. Neither of us are experts on this, right?
>Roman association between being a barbarian (a foreigner, or more exactly
>one whose native language is not Greek - later to "not Greek or Latin") and
>having a beard.
>>
>> My first real introduction to figures of speech was in Latin class and
>> in the list of those somewhere iirc is naming something small after
>> something big that contains it. The only example I can think of now
>> where the word gets shortened is Tex-Mex food.... How about "fan",
>> short for "fanatic", but I never saw the relationship until it was
>> pointed out?
>[...]
>
>> Yes Greeks were barbarus too and they
>> didn't have beards I guess (Is this true of the Spartans and the West
>> Coast (Adriatic) Greeks too.?)
>
>By definition a Greek could not be "barbaros", since its central meaning is
>"not having Greek as one's native language".
I thought I was agreeing with something you had said which is snipped
now. But I must have misunderstood. If the Romans didn't consider
the Greeks barbaros, that just makes things better, since it makes
stronger the statistical correlation between no-beard and barbaros.
> Older Athenians did have
>beards, judging by their statues. I doin't know much about the Spartans,
>except that they had long hair. One needs to remember that shaving was a
>painful and fairly ineffectual process in the days before any metal could
>AFAIK be given a really sharp edge. There were in Roman times some
I have thought about that, but I was told they didn't have beards.
Maybe they didn't have long beards, and maybe barba meant to them some
longer beard than what they had. Just as we take long hair for a
woman to mean shoulder length or longer, and long hair for a man to
include anything that would cover his entire ear. I'm considered to
have short hair, but among a bunch of crewcut marines they might think
I have long hair. So maybe barba only meant a beard greater than a
certain length.
Besides scraping the skin with a razor, maybe a flint, were there
depilatories, or was there a way to just shorten a beard, like with
scissors?
OK, rather than burden you with this, I looked myself. I put the
stuff at the bottom.
>unpleasant alternative to the razor - for example, singeing the hairs with
>hot walnut shells (though I think that was for body hair, and presumably
>required a remarkably dextrous barber).
If they went to the trouble to singe off body hair, they might have
been willing to accept pain to get rid of facial hair. People today
do.
I certainly can't prove I'm right. I'm not even sure I'm right. I'm
just saying it still seems to be possible. I thought you're best
argument against my suggestion was that the Romans were often bearded,
but now that I think of it, Marcus Aurelius reigned from 161 to 180,
which could have been 2 centuries or more after the word barba would
have been coined under my suggestion. What was once despised because
it was similar to the warring foreigners could have become acceptable.
Just Friday I saw a guy more than 40 years old wearing two earings, at
work no less, and a classy hardware and furnishings, not a 7-11. What
used to be done only by freakazoids is now accepted by most, at least
tolerated. And that's only in the space of 25 years, not centuries.
So beards may have been very uncommon, only among slaves and
derelicts, when barba was coined, but the word stayed on after Roman
men wore them too.
Wouldn't they have been upset by the connection with barbaros?. That
depends, and is a worth thread in itself. When did barbaros go from
just meaning foreign to meaning savage? Merely sounding foreign might
not be any worse than "french perfume", "Italian fashion", or
"imported wine and caviar".
There is a twist to this. You may well be right, but because you
can't recall or don't know every single detail, I can come up with a
theory that sounds plausible. That doesn't make you wrong. People
who try to convert others to their cults rely on their prey not
knowing the answers to questions, but the fact that they don't know
the answers doesn't mean there aren't very good ones. It is to be
hoped that even if they join the cult, they'll learn the truth and
quit.
>Alan Jones
>
http://www.linea-bec.it/testoruk.html
Although apparently the old Greeks did not make use of make-up, by
the fourth century BC cosmetics were well established. The women were
painted rose colour and white. The white was usually white
lead while the rouge was vermillion or vegetable substances. Later
mercuric sulfide was used as well as white lead and orpiment, a
compound of arsenic, was used as depilatory. ...
----------
Besides perfumes Romans were found of make-up, they used kohl to make
up the eyes, fucus (a red colour) for cheeks and lips, psilotrum as a
depilatory, barley flour and butter as a cure for pimples and pumice
---------- stone for whitening the teeth.
I'm not sure exact years or how much of this was for men.
http://www.depilatory.com/ages.html
This could be a biased site, but unless they are lying, they have
phrased things so they don't seem subject to charges of exaggeration.
The pursuit of a hair-free body may be as old as the
cavemen. Archaeologists have evidence that men shaved
their faces as far back as twenty thousand years ago, using
sharpened rocks and shells to scrape off hair. The Sumerians
removed hair with tweezers. Ancient Arabians used string.
Egyptians, including Cleopatra, also did it -- some with
bronze razors they took to their tombs, some with sugar and
others with beeswax. The Greeks, who equated smooth with civilized,
did it, too. Roman men shaved their faces until Emperor Hadrian --
although Julius Caesar is said to have had his facial hairs plucked.
Roman ladies also plucked their eyebrows with tweezers. Another
primitive method of hair removal, actually used by women as late as
the 1940s, involved rubbing off the hair by rubbing skin with abrasive
mitts or discs the consistency of fine sandpaper.
Alan Jones
"nimue" <cup_o...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:MTFp8.6726$9N1.1...@typhoon.nyc.rr.com...
[...]
> I have an off-topic, slightly related question for you. Why are you
> putting commas and periods outside the quotation marks? According to
> Webster's New World Guide To Punctuation,
> commas and periods are ALWAYS placed INSIDE closing quotation marks. The
> Handbook of Good English, by Edward D. Johnson, says, "commas and
periods
> always go within a closing quotation mark." That last sentence was an
> example of this. The Well Tempered Sentence, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon,
> says the same thing. Are they missing something? Let me know.
Well spotted! It's because I'm British. Our conventions for punctuation
aren't the same as yours. We put the comma or full stop [which is our term
for your 'period'] inside or outside the closing quotation marks depending
on where they logically belong - which is usually outside. In your Johnson
example, the quotation is embedded in a larger sentence, and the full stop
therefore goes after the quotation because it ends the sentence as a whole.
So I'd write: The Handbook ... says, "Commas and periods ... quotation
mark". You will note that one of your reference books is the "New World
Guide". That evidently means "Guide for the New World", not "New Guide for
the Whole World". The Old World has its own conventions.
[...]
> I was told that the
> word "barbarian" came from the sound the Romans made to imitate the
> barbarians. The Romans thought that the barbarians speech sounded like
> someone just saying, "bar bar bar," hence, barbarian. I now fear I was
lied
> to.
That's correct, except that it was the Greeks rather than the Romans. I
imagine that the Greeks probably thought Latin was just bar-bar-bar, which
in their heyday it probably was.
Alan Jones
nimue
"Alan Jones" <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:CgHp8.14327$2O2.7...@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk...
Thank you for the information! We Americans have these crazy conventions,
like Farenheit temperatures, and driving on the right side of the road.
BTW, I just read that this convention developed in America because printers
in the days of hand-set type found that a period or comma would often be
knocked right off if left at the end of a sentence, so they would just put
it inside the more secure quotation marks. I have no idea if this is true,
and, if it is, why printers in the Old World didn't discover and do the same
thing, but it's the best explanation I have found so far.
>
>
>
>
meirman
<cup_o...@yahoo.com> posted:
No you weren't, except it was the Greeks who did that. This was dealt
with earlier in the thread, (and ftm no one is taking issue with it.)
And why assume they were lying when it is far more likely they made a
mistake. Why do so many people call every false statement a lie?
(Or that you misrecall, or, not in this case but in other situations,
that things looked different to different people. Calling a statement
a lie is the same as calling someone a liar and if he is present, that
is a sure way to raise the level of hostility, and prevent a solution
and even a discussion of what the issues are. They might otherwise be
easily resolved. They might be incredibly trivial but even if that is
learned, the charge of something being a lie will not wash away
easily.)
Why would anyone lie to you about the origin of the word barbarian?
I'm sure they didn't and it is one of the other explanations.
>to. Please address my puncutation/quotation mark question. Thank you!
>nimue
>
>>
>
meirman
<a...@blueyonder.co.uk> posted:
>
>> commas and periods are ALWAYS placed INSIDE closing quotation marks. The
>> Handbook of Good English, by Edward D. Johnson, says, "commas and
>periods
>> always go within a closing quotation mark." That last sentence was an
>> example of this. The Well Tempered Sentence, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon,
>> says the same thing. Are they missing something? Let me know.
>
>Well spotted! It's because I'm British. Our conventions for punctuation
>aren't the same as yours.
Yeah, but here's one Yank whom you have pulled over to your side.
From an early age, I had some problem with the comman on the inside.
I don't use quotes in anything I write at work, and I'm not going to
be pushed around by American convention elsewhere. Do I have to
sign-up to enlist, and do I have to provide my own saddle?
> We put the comma or full stop [which is our term
>for your 'period'] inside or outside the closing quotation marks depending
Donna Richoux
> Thank you for the information! We Americans have these crazy conventions,
> like Farenheit temperatures, and driving on the right side of the road.
> BTW, I just read that this convention developed in America because printers
> in the days of hand-set type found that a period or comma would often be
> knocked right off if left at the end of a sentence, so they would just put
> it inside the more secure quotation marks. I have no idea if this is true,
> and, if it is, why printers in the Old World didn't discover and do the same
> thing, but it's the best explanation I have found so far.
That is a weak point in that story, isn't it? I've seen that
explanation, or very similar, for a long time -- it's in our FAQ at the
AUE Website, under the obscure heading:
", vs ,"
I don't remember ever seeing it seriously challenged, so maybe it's
true... Perhaps Old World printing technology had some significantly
different manner of keeping the type in place. Perhaps the Americans
only *thought* it was an advantage. Perhaps the story is completely
bogus. Who knows.
By the way, I hope this doesn't prompt a huge discussion about
punctuation -- we seem to talk about the US/UK differences in quotation
marks, etc, about every two months. The Style Guides in Intro B have
good examples on quotation mark use.
Donna Richoux
[replying to Alan Jones, though that is snipped here]
> I'm not challenging that Latin got barbaros from Greek. Just
> suggesting that after it did, the Romans came to use barba for beard.
> Something, barely, like English getting "cub" from some foreign
> language and then calling young campers "cub scouts".
Did you see my post of three days ago? The dictionary at the Perseus
Project, which gives citations for the use of ancient Latin words, shows
that the earliest writer (Plautius b. 254BC) who used "barbarus" for
foreign also used "barbatus" for bearded. One word is not identifiably
newer than the other.
>
> It bothers me when you say it would require evidence. I'm not trying
> to prove one thing or another. I'm only giving suggestions.
Yes, but facts are supposed to influence you.
> I have thought about that, but I was told they didn't have beards.
> Maybe they didn't have long beards, and maybe barba meant to them some
> longer beard than what they had. >Just as we take long hair for a
> woman to mean shoulder length or longer, and long hair for a man to
> include anything that would cover his entire ear. I'm considered to
> have short hair, but among a bunch of crewcut marines they might think
> I have long hair. So maybe barba only meant a beard greater than a
> certain length.
Meaning, there would be another word for a short beard? What would that
be, then? I suggest you go to this site and have a look for yourself.
English-Latin Word Search
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/enggreek?lang=Latin
> Wouldn't they have been upset by the connection with barbaros?.
Do you mean, would the people with beards have been annoyed because the
word for bearded had a superficial resemblance to a word for "foreigner"
or possibly "savage"? Heavens, can't we think of two English words that
bear a superficial resemblance, one insulting, one not? "Fiend" and
"friend"? "Bother" and "brother"? "Niggardly" and "nigger"? Nobody stops
words from being coined and circulated because of incidental
resemblances. (Well, maybe corporations seeking new brand names.)
Anyway, there's a perfectly good explanation for why the Romans used
barb- for beards. More than half of Europe (1) calls beards something
like "barb" or "bard" or "barada" -- not just languages influenced by
Latin. The book _Roots of English_ (Claiborne, 1989) says they are
descended from the Indo-European root word "bharda". That one may
possibly have come from IE *Bhar, Bhor, projection or point, which also
gave rise to bristle, burr, bass (fish), and possibly boar.
((1) Who doesn't? These use a word resembling "skjegg" or "sakan":
Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Hungarian, and, on the edge of Europe,
Turkish and Hebrew. And, strangely enough, the other exception is modern
Greek, which has "ye'nion".)
nimue
> >
> >Okay. I have an off-topic, slightly related question for you. Why are
you
> >putting commas and periods outside the quotation marks? According to
> >Webster's New World Guide To Punctuation,
> >commas and periods are ALWAYS placed INSIDE closing quotation marks.
The
> > Handbook of Good English, by Edward D. Johnson, says, "commas and
periods
> >always go within a closing quotation mark." That last sentence was an
> >example of this. The Well Tempered Sentence, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon,
> >says the same thing. Are they missing something? Let me know. BTW, I
am
> >very impressed with your knowledge of Latin and Greek. I was told that
the
> >word "barbarian" came from the sound the Romans made to imitate the
> >barbarians. The Romans thought that the barbarians speech sounded like
> >someone just saying, "bar bar bar," hence, barbarian. I now fear I was
lied
> >to.
>
> No you weren't, except it was the Greeks who did that. This was dealt
> with earlier in the thread, (and ftm no one is taking issue with it.)
> And why assume they were lying when it is far more likely they made a
> mistake. Why do so many people call every false statement a lie?
>
the wry tone in my voice....
> (Or that you misrecall, or, not in this case but in other situations,
> that things looked different to different people. Calling a statement
> a lie is the same as calling someone a liar and if he is present, that
> is a sure way to raise the level of hostility, and prevent a solution
> and even a discussion of what the issues are. They might otherwise be
> easily resolved. They might be incredibly trivial but even if that is
> learned, the charge of something being a lie will not wash away
> easily.)
Again, I was KIDDING! I am stunned that anyone took my "lie" comment
seriously. Sorry! I don't think anyone lied to me.
meirman
<cup_o...@yahoo.com> posted:
No. I guess what I heard were the voices from the court shows where
one side is always accusing the other of lying, even when they are
family, and they are not kidding, and everything I said to you applies
to them. Glad to hear you were kidding.
>
>> (Or that you misrecall, or, not in this case but in other situations,
>> that things looked different to different people. Calling a statement
>> a lie is the same as calling someone a liar and if he is present, that
>> is a sure way to raise the level of hostility, and prevent a solution
>> and even a discussion of what the issues are. They might otherwise be
>> easily resolved. They might be incredibly trivial but even if that is
>> learned, the charge of something being a lie will not wash away
>> easily.)
>Again, I was KIDDING! I am stunned that anyone took my "lie" comment
>seriously. Sorry! I don't think anyone lied to me.
Cool.
Alan Jones
> In alt.english.usage on Sun, 31 Mar 2002 17:00:18 GMT "Alan Jones"
> <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> posted:
>
quotation marks?]
> >
> >Well spotted! It's because I'm British. Our conventions for punctuation
> >aren't the same as yours.
>
> Yeah, but here's one Yank whom you have pulled over to your side.
> From an early age, I had some problem with the comman on the inside.
> I don't use quotes in anything I write at work, and I'm not going to
> be pushed around by American convention elsewhere. Do I have to
> sign-up to enlist, and do I have to provide my own saddle?
Good to have you aboard, Sir! (It's a paddle you need to provide, not a
saddle.)
There is, I think, a Pondian difference in attitude to language conventions.
Americans, speaking very generally, require a degree of certainty and
conformity that seems to us in Britain unnecessary. We really don't mind at
all whether someone uses -ize or -ise, as long as usage is consistent in a
particular piece of writing. If someone chooses to put the full stop before
the closing quotation marks, let him - provided, again, that internal
consistency is maintained. These are matters of individual style, and as
individuals we aren't greatly impressed even by e.g. the weight of the OED
editors' arguments for a wider use of -ize. Publishers' style books disagree
with one another, and in any case are frequently revised. It does seem odd
that Americans, who have traditionally taken such a free and creative line
in speech and in demotic writing, are so keen to be rule-bound in more
formal contexts and defer so readily to authority.
I must qualify this opinion by saying that it's deduced more from the
questions posed in a.e.u. and a.u.e. than to the answers, which are as
idiosyncratic as any Brit could wish!
Alan Jones
Matti Lamprhey
> [...]
> There is, I think, a Pondian difference in attitude to language
> conventions. Americans, speaking very generally, require a degree of
> certainty and conformity that seems to us in Britain unnecessary. We
> really don't mind at all whether someone uses -ize or -ise, as long as
> usage is consistent in a particular piece of writing. If someone chooses
> to put the full stop before the closing quotation marks, let him -
> provided, again, that internal consistency is maintained. These are
> matters of individual style, and as individuals we aren't greatly
> impressed even by e.g. the weight of the OED editors' arguments for a
> wider use of -ize. Publishers' style books disagree with one another, and
> in any case are frequently revised.
> It does seem odd that Americans, who have traditionally taken such a
> free and creative line in speech and in demotic writing, are so keen to be
> rule-bound in more formal contexts and defer so readily to authority.
I'm glad someone else has observed this and found the same aspect odd. It
would be interesting to hear other comments, particularly from a Leftpondian
angle. (Or is this restricted to the USA?)
I wonder whether perhaps the teaching of English in Leftpondia has tended to
have an element of teaching it as a foreign language. That, of course, is
thought by some to need the teaching of rules without much in the way of
justification. It may be that Britain has also recently found it necessary
to add a TOEFL approach, and that we are likely to observe the same effects
here in the coming years.
You hint that this attitude to authority may have a more general scope than
the language. If it's true, what might be the causes and implications?
>
> I must qualify this opinion by saying that it's deduced more from the
> questions posed in a.e.u. and a.u.e. than to the answers, which are as
> idiosyncratic as any Brit could wish!
Really? I could have sworn I'd detected the pattern in some of the answers
too.
Matti
Bob Cunningham
[ . . . ]
>Anyway, there's a perfectly good explanation for why the Romans used
>barb- for beards. More than half of Europe (1) calls beards something
>like "barb" or "bard" or "barada" -- not just languages influenced by
>Latin. The book _Roots of English_ (Claiborne, 1989) says they are
>descended from the Indo-European root word "bharda". That one may
>possibly have come from IE *Bhar, Bhor, projection or point, which also
>gave rise to bristle, burr, bass (fish), and possibly boar.
But let's keep remembering what Alan Jones first pointed out: that the
_Oxford English Dictionary_ (_OED_) says, with reference to the various
Indo-European cognates of "bard"(1), "Kinship to L. barba is, on phonetic
grounds, doubtful".
(1) Common Teut.: OE. beard (: [{em}] earlier *bard, *bærd) = MDu. baert,
Du. baard, OHG., mod.G. bart, ON. *bar [{edh}] r retained only in comp. as
Langbar [{edh}] r (but cogn. with bar [{edh}] neuter, 'brim, edge, beak,
prow,' whence sense 11 below): [{em}] OTeut. *bardo-z (not known in
Gothic); cogn. w. OSlav.(2) barda beard. Kinship to L. barba is, on
phonetic grounds, doubtful.
2) Interesting to see, while _OED_ cites Old Slavic "barda", _Webster's
Third New International Dictionary_ has Old Slavic "brada". I think it
should not be surprising to see metathesis in comparing words in Slavic
languages with their equivalents in other European languages.
A modern Russian word for "beard" is "boroda", which seems clearly related
to the words for "beard" in other European languages.
Fasmer's _Etimologicheskyi Slovar' Russkovo Yazika_ (_Etymological
Dictionary of the Russian Language_) cites words for "beard" in various
Slavic languages:
Old Slavic: brada
Bulgarian and several others: brada
Polish: broda
Lithuanian(?): barzda
Old Prussian: bordus
Lars Eighner
lovely and talented Matti Lamprhey broadcast on alt.usage.english:
> "Alan Jones" <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote...
>> [...]
>> There is, I think, a Pondian difference in attitude to language
>> conventions. Americans, speaking very generally, require a degree of
>> certainty and conformity that seems to us in Britain unnecessary. We
>> really don't mind at all whether someone uses -ize or -ise, as long as
>> usage is consistent in a particular piece of writing. If someone chooses
>> to put the full stop before the closing quotation marks, let him -
>> provided, again, that internal consistency is maintained. These are
>> matters of individual style, and as individuals we aren't greatly
>> impressed even by e.g. the weight of the OED editors' arguments for a
>> wider use of -ize. Publishers' style books disagree with one another, and
>> in any case are frequently revised.
>> It does seem odd that Americans, who have traditionally taken such a
>> free and creative line in speech and in demotic writing, are so keen to be
>> rule-bound in more formal contexts and defer so readily to authority.
> I'm glad someone else has observed this and found the same aspect odd. It
> would be interesting to hear other comments, particularly from a Leftpondian
> angle. (Or is this restricted to the USA?)
First, most of the things identified as peculiar to American English
are merely continuations of one of several competing styles in
British English or are extensions of reforms first introduced in
England (where they never entirely succeeded). Fowler, to name but
one, thought -ize very sensible and found little justification for
most of the u's in the -ours. I must admit that sometimes I suspect
nationalism put a stop to these reforms in the country where they
started once it was noticed that Americans had adopted them
thoroughly.
As for American uniformity, I believe we can hold Noah Webster most
accountable. While the English had a surplus of authorities,
Americans had but one. He was there just as Americans committed
themselves to universal education (although of course Americans did
not really mean "universal"). I suppose there was also in Britain
the same 19th century optimism and belief in the perfectibility of
human institutions: the difference was, Americans had a clean slate.
Printing and publishing, and especially educational publishing was
concentrated in Boston and in so few hands that it is hardly
surprising that a high degree of uniformity prevailed - if only to
make editorial drudges more-or-less interchangeable parts.
Halfway into the 20th century, American children learned to read from
the same primers (I mean all of them of a certain age had the same
primers, not that they were still using the 19th century ones). From
Maine to California it was: "See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot.
Run."
> I wonder whether perhaps the teaching of English in Leftpondia has
> tended to have an element of teaching it as a foreign language.
If you mean we parsed sentences until the world looked level, we did.
--
Lars Eighner -finger for geek code- eig...@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work
in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. --Sharon O'Brien
CyberCypher
news:slrnaagjvs...@dumpster.io.com:
[...]
> Printing and publishing, and
> especially educational publishing was concentrated in Boston and
> in so few hands that it is hardly surprising that a high degree of
> uniformity prevailed - if only to make editorial drudges
> more-or-less interchangeable parts.
Here, Donna, is where you can use "fungible": ". . . if only to make
editorial drudges fungible".
--
Franke
Laura F Spira
This question will no doubt generate detailed, informed and instructive
debate. I could offer some significant and topical examples relating to
accounting standards and Enron, but the sun is shining and I'm off for a
walk to counter over-consumption of cinnamon balls so here is my
simplistic answer: The US has a written constitution. The UK doesn't.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
Lars Eighner
<Xns91E3CF227...@130.133.1.4>,
the lovely and talented CyberCypher
broadcast on alt.usage.english:
I was fungible once, but I got some Tinactin and it cleared right up.
--
Lars Eighner -finger for geek code- eig...@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
War on Terrorism: Treat Readers like Mushrooms
"If the story needs rewriting to play down the civilian casualties, DO IT."
-Memo, _Panama City_ (FL) _News Herald_
Robert Bannister
> There is, I think, a Pondian difference in attitude to language conventions.
> Americans, speaking very generally, require a degree of certainty and
> conformity that seems to us in Britain unnecessary. We really don't mind at
> all whether someone uses -ize or -ise, as long as usage is consistent in a
> particular piece of writing. If someone chooses to put the full stop before
> the closing quotation marks, let him - provided, again, that internal
> consistency is maintained. These are matters of individual style, and as
> individuals we aren't greatly impressed even by e.g. the weight of the OED
> editors' arguments for a wider use of -ize. Publishers' style books disagree
> with one another, and in any case are frequently revised. It does seem odd
> that Americans, who have traditionally taken such a free and creative line
> in speech and in demotic writing, are so keen to be rule-bound in more
> formal contexts and defer so readily to authority.
>
> I must qualify this opinion by saying that it's deduced more from the
> questions posed in a.e.u. and a.u.e. than to the answers, which are as
> idiosyncratic as any Brit could wish!
Brilliant letter. I couldn't agree more, except I'd like to include a few other
non-American, non-British countries.
--
Rob Bannister
Dr Robin Bignall
Actually, that's probably near the mark. The British have been
muddling along for a couple of thousand years, making it up as we went
along, and then calling whatever it was we made up 'tradition' a
hundred years later.
--
wrmst rgrds
RB...(docrobi...@ntlworld.com)
Alan Jones
"Dr Robin Bignall" <docr...@red.sylvania> wrote in message
news:4lajau09l53apq3eq...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 01 Apr 2002 13:27:37 +0100, Laura F Spira
> <la...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com> wrote:
>
> >Matti Lamprhey wrote:
> >>
have a more general scope than the language. If it's true, what might be
the causes and implications?
> >
> >This question will no doubt generate detailed, informed and instructive
> >debate. I could offer some significant and topical examples relating to
> >accounting standards and Enron, but the sun is shining and I'm off for a
> >walk to counter over-consumption of cinnamon balls so here is my
> >simplistic answer: The US has a written constitution. The UK doesn't.
>
> Actually, that's probably near the mark. The British have been
> muddling along for a couple of thousand years, making it up as we went
> along, and then calling whatever it was we made up 'tradition' a
> hundred years later.
Someone once told me that in America to do something once sets a precedent
and to do it again establishes a tradition. So our hundred years' delay is
the characteristic of RightPondian idleness and lack of get up 'n go.
Alan Jones
Tony Cooper
>
> Someone once told me that in America to do something once sets a precedent
> and to do it again establishes a tradition. So our hundred years' delay is
> the characteristic of RightPondian idleness and lack of get up 'n go.
Yes. I have attended many "First Annual ......" events.
--
Tony Cooper aka: tony_co...@yahoo.com
Provider of Jots and Tittles
John Holmes
> It does seem odd
> that Americans, who have traditionally taken such a free and creative
line
> in speech and in demotic writing, are so keen to be rule-bound in more
> formal contexts and defer so readily to authority.
Do you mean like the resident un-American Language Committee here which
has been known to haul some regulars over the coals if they stray from
the one true path and use an expression suggestive (to the Committee) of
Briticism or Hibernicism?
--
Regards
John
Tony Cooper
>
> Do you mean like the resident un-American Language Committee here which
> has been known to haul some regulars over the coals if they stray from
> the one true path and use an expression suggestive (to the Committee) of
> Briticism or Hibernicism?
>
I think I've been promoted to "regular".
Simon R. Hughes
> John Holmes wrote:
> >
> > Do you mean like the resident un-American Language Committee here which
> > has been known to haul some regulars over the coals if they stray from
> > the one true path and use an expression suggestive (to the Committee) of
> > Briticism or Hibernicism?
> >
>
> I think I've been promoted to "regular".
We've experienced your bowel movements often enough.
--
Simon R. Hughes
John Holmes
"Tony Cooper" <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3CAA6894...@yahoo.com...
> John Holmes wrote:
> >
> > Do you mean like the resident un-American Language Committee here
which
> > has been known to haul some regulars over the coals if they stray
from
> > the one true path and use an expression suggestive (to the
Committee) of
> > Briticism or Hibernicism?
> >
>
> I think I've been promoted to "regular".
That might not be such an honour if it is like someone's
characterisation once of Charles as regular.
However in this case it puts you in good company indeed. Some of the
most respected regulars have been pounced on in the past for admitting
to such shameful un-Americanisms as 'in future' and 'in hospital'.
--
Regards
John
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>
>"Tony Cooper" <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:3CAA6894...@yahoo.com...
>> I think I've been promoted to "regular".
>
>That might not be such an honour if it is like someone's
>characterisation once of Charles as regular.
I think Charles will make a right fit regular King. The press has
always been too hard on him. You should be happy to be in his company,
regularity-wise.
--
Charles Riggs
Alec Owen
"Dr Robin Bignall" <docr...@red.sylvania> wrote in message
news:4lajau09l53apq3eq...@4ax.com...
Britain who is opposed by a majority of
voters would not last long and would never be selected by a few judges as
in the
USA. Don't knock it.
A Owen
Richard Fontana
> You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime Minister in
> Britain who is opposed by a majority of
> voters would not last long and would never be selected by a few judges as
> in the
> USA. Don't knock it.
Is this British irony? An article I found on the web written no
earlier than 1997 says that (then) all fifteen of the postwar
governments in the UK were based on the governing party winning a
minority of the electorate in the general election. This is one of the
most familiar criticisms of the UK political system, that it has allowed
minority-support parties to become the governing party.
Selected by judges? You have a political system in which a hereditary
monarch has regularly asked the leaders of minority-support parties to
form governments. Geez!
Polar
But will he ever sit on the throne? His mother seems to be
doing OK, and his grandmother just checked out peacefully at 101.
--
Polar
Simon R. Hughes
> On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Alec Owen wrote:
>
> > You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime Minister in
> > Britain who is opposed by a majority of
> > voters would not last long and would never be selected by a few judges as
> > in the
> > USA. Don't knock it.
>
> Is this British irony? An article I found on the web written no
> earlier than 1997 says that (then) all fifteen of the postwar
> governments in the UK were based on the governing party winning a
> minority of the electorate in the general election. This is one of the
> most familiar criticisms of the UK political system, that it has allowed
> minority-support parties to become the governing party.
It is the consequence of the UK having what is in reality a three-
party parliament. If the US ever gets a real third party to compete
in the elections, the US will experience the same thing. It is not a
criticism of the British election system, but a criticism of the
first-past-the-post system used anywhere (also in the US).
A suggestion to counter the inherent unfairness of the first-past-
the-post system is proportional representation; however, in an
essentially three-party parliament, the smallest of the parties
would effectively control the policy getting through.
Norway, which has proportional representation, solves the problem by
splintering the parties, which prevents any one party controlling
the legislation getting through. Compromise is the only way to go in
Norwegian politics, which means that governmental policy is
relatively stable, and the majority of the electorate are moderately
satisfied.
> Selected by judges? You have a political system in which a hereditary
> monarch has regularly asked the leaders of minority-support parties to
> form governments. Geez!
Yeah, but we didn't mind if Maggie forgot to shave.
--
Simon R. Hughes
Shakib Otaqui
"Alec Owen" <ao...@phaedrav.com> wrote:
> >[...]
> You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime Minister in
> Britain who is opposed by a majority of
> voters would not last long and would never be selected by a few judges as
> in the
> USA. Don't knock it.
Almost every prime minister for the past 50 years was opposed
by a majority of voters. Tony Blair's two landslides and
Thatcher's victories in the 1980s were based on 42-44 per cent
of the vote. If one includes abstainers, Blair's massive win
last year had the support of only 25 per cent of eligible voters.
Who needs judges?
--
No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in.
Christopher Meadowbrook
"Shakib Otaqui" <sha...@tinlc.lumbercartel.com> wrote in message
news:20020403....@pandora.orbl.org...
> In article <3cab31c3$1...@audacity.velocet.net>,
> "Alec Owen" <ao...@phaedrav.com> wrote:
>
> > >[...]
> > You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime Minister
in
> > Britain who is opposed by a majority of
> > voters would not last long and would never be selected by a few judges
as
> > in the
> > USA. Don't knock it.
>
> Almost every prime minister for the past 50 years was opposed
> by a majority of voters. Tony Blair's two landslides and
> Thatcher's victories in the 1980s were based on 42-44 per cent
> of the vote. If one includes abstainers, Blair's massive win
> last year had the support of only 25 per cent of eligible voters.
I don't think you can legitimately include abstainers if you're talking
about those who have "opposed".
--
CM
"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil."
Polar
Anybody see the new Economist? The book reviewer trashed her
autobio.
--
Polar
J. J. Lodder
> Thus Spake Richard Fontana:
> > On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Alec Owen wrote:
> >
> > > You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime Minister in
> > > Britain who is opposed by a majority of
> > > voters would not last long and would never be selected by a few judges as
> > > in the
> > > USA. Don't knock it.
> >
> > Is this British irony? An article I found on the web written no
> > earlier than 1997 says that (then) all fifteen of the postwar
> > governments in the UK were based on the governing party winning a
> > minority of the electorate in the general election. This is one of the
> > most familiar criticisms of the UK political system, that it has allowed
> > minority-support parties to become the governing party.
>
> It is the consequence of the UK having what is in reality a three-
> party parliament.
Not really. The third party is not needed for the majority.
> If the US ever gets a real third party to compete
> in the elections, the US will experience the same thing. It is not a
> criticism of the British election system, but a criticism of the
> first-past-the-post system used anywhere (also in the US).
>
> A suggestion to counter the inherent unfairness of the first-past-
> the-post system is proportional representation; however, in an
> essentially three-party parliament, the smallest of the parties
> would effectively control the policy getting through.
It is what Germany has had for a long time.
The small third party is not in control there.
It has more than proportional influence though.
> Norway, which has proportional representation, solves the problem by
> splintering the parties, which prevents any one party controlling
> the legislation getting through. Compromise is the only way to go in
> Norwegian politics, which means that governmental policy is
> relatively stable, and the majority of the electorate are moderately
> satisfied.
Norway is not special in that respect:
most of continental Europe has coalition governments.
It is only England and the US
where the noble art of forming coalitions is unknown.
Jan
Alan Jones
"Richard Fontana" <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.44.020403...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu...
Following a General Election, the Queen invites the leader of the party with
the largest number of Commons seats to attempt to form a Government. In a
system with three or more well-supported parties that "majority" party will
almost inevitably have only minority support in terms of votes cast. If the
invitee's party has a considerable majority of seats, he will able to form a
Government and the Queen can then appoint him as her Prime Minister. If his
is the largest single party but doesn't have an overall Commons majority, he
can proceed only in coalition, whether formal or informal. Perhaps he will
have to tell the Queen that he cannot form a stable Government. She will
then approach another person, in the first instance from the same party, who
may be able to gain enough support from the other MPs. The obvious example,
though not following an election, was in 1940, when the Conservative PM,
Chamberlain, could not maintain the overall support even of his own party,
but Churchill (a fellow-Conservative if a rather maverick one) commanded the
support of Labour and Liberal MPs as well as most of his own side, and was
able to form a National Government with ministers drawn from all parties.
Coalitions are inherently unstable unless, as in 1940, at a time of crisis
when patriotism overrides party considerations. A PM working in coalition or
with a very slender majority can never be confident of his ability to
survive a vote of no confidence, and will usually ask the Queen to dissolve
Parliament after a few months so that a fresh election can be held at which
either his own position will be strengthened or an Opposition party will do
well enough to replace his Government.
The Queen's own role in all this is quite rigidly circumscribed by
convention. If there is a PM in office, she is obliged to act upon his
advice. If not, she must do nothing without "taking soundings" among the
relevant group - either the grandees of the party concerned or the Privy
Council. In any case, it is the Commons who have the last word: if the new
PM is defeated in a formal vote of confidence, he must go and the process
must begin again. The Queen's hereditary position gives her a sort of
detachment from politics very desirable in someone occasionally required to
umpire the political process as an impartial facilitator.
By comparison, the US system seems rather unresponsive, with no possibility
(short of assassination) of replacing the Head of Government in mid-term.
It's often said that the UK elects a dictator with a five-year term of
office, but the accusation seems even more strikingly applicable to the US.
Alan Jones
Richard Fontana
[...]
> By comparison, the US system seems rather unresponsive, with no possibility
> (short of assassination) of replacing the Head of Government in mid-term.
Or short of the president being convicted of "high Crimes and
Misdemeanors", or resigning in the face of great political pressure (as
in Richard Nixon's case during the Post-Tet, Pre-Bicentennial
Presidential Crisis commonly known to the lay public as "Watergate").
Even in these cases, though, the way the order of succession works,
you're unlikely to get a completely new administration.
Many states, particularly Western frontier ones I believe, have a
system of so-called "recall" (Mike Hardy, there's another one for your
list) under which a governor (as well as certain other public
officials) can be removed from office by popular vote in the middle of
the official's term of office. Whatever the merits (if any) of that
sort of system, it obviously reflects the view that the fixed elective
term is not sufficiently responsive to changes in popular will.
> It's often said that the UK elects a dictator with a five-year term of
> office, but the accusation seems even more strikingly applicable to the US.
But the reference to the UK prime minister as a "dictator" reflects the
fact that the UK has a unitary system of government with no
true "separation of powers". This makes for admirably efficient
government but it has its dangers. The U.S. president today clearly
doesn't look very much like a dictator[1], but it really depends on how
much deference to the executive branch is exercised by the other two
branches. Throughout much of the Cold War Era the Congress was
unusually deferential towards the presidency, though this was not true
during the Watergate Crisis and its Aftermath. Under essentially the
same system of government, 19th century presidents with the exception
of Lincoln were generally very weak figures); and during
the Post-Cold War Era, particularly the Clinton Years, the "imperial"
nature of the presidency seemed to disappear and the Congress seemed
to become somewhat more spineful, however one might view the
particular dominant politics of the Congress during those years. All
in all, a salutary development, I'd say, and so the diminution in
power of the U.S. presidency counts as one GPGWD. (Anyone keeping
score?) The federal judiciary has similarly gone through different
stages during which it's been relatively deferential or non-deferential
towards the presidency (and the Congress). So I don't think this
admittedly clumsy and inefficient US system looks much like a
dictatorship.
[1]George W. Bush doesn't look very much like a dictator to me. He is
widely ridiculed for his supposed intellectual deficiencies and poor
speaking ability. But what do those critics think of *their*
preferred president, NBC's President Jed Bartlet? In tonight's
episode of _The West Wing_, President Bartlet, who is depicted on the
show as a sort of intellecual president (he's supposed to be a
former economics professor and, I believe, a Nobel laureate in
economics) spoke of the "U.S. calvary" and spoke to a high school
English teacher asking her if she taught Beowulf "in the original
Middle English". I mean, this is Dan Quayle-potatoe-type stuff! (We
can excuse C.J.'s reference to President Bartlet holding an honorary
doctorate from some place called "Dartmouth University" [presumably
located in Bartlet's home state of New Hampshire] in the previous
episode -- what does she know? She went to Berkeley.)
Eric Walker
[...]
>The Queen's hereditary position gives her a sort of
>detachment from politics very desirable in someone
>occasionally required to umpire the political process as an
>impartial facilitator.
>
>By comparison, the US system seems rather unresponsive, with
>no possibility (short of assassination) of replacing the Head
>of Government in mid-term. It's often said that the UK elects
>a dictator with a five-year term of office, but the accusation
>seems even more strikingly applicable to the US.
It has many times been remarked that the U.S. suffers from the
combining of the functions of Head of State and head of
Government in one person, the president. The role of Head of
State tends to lend the presidency a stature that is quite
inappropriate for a Head of Government.
In theory, the president cannot be as dictatorial within his
term as a prime minister can, owing to the famous "separation
of powers," which nominally maintains three approximately
equipotent branches of government--the executive, the
legislative, and the judicial--in a triangular state of tension
such that no one branch can behave excessively. The reality is
that while the system is by no means a sham, it nevertheless is
not as effective as one might hope.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
Owlcroft House
Alan Jones
> On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, Alan Jones wrote:
[...]>
> > office, but the accusation seems even more strikingly applicable to the
US.
>
> But the reference to the UK prime minister as a "dictator" reflects the
> fact that the UK has a unitary system of government with no
> true "separation of powers". This makes for admirably efficient
> government but it has its dangers. The U.S. president today clearly
> much deference to the executive branch is exercised by the other two
An interesting exposition - sorry to have snipped so much of it But can you
tell me who in the US has responsibility for waging war, whether on
"terrorism" or on a specific country? Do the Senate and the House debate the
matter and can they forbid a bellicose President to send in the troops? In
UK the PM can do this without any prior reference to Parliament, using - I
suppose - the Royal Prerogative; but if he had only a small majority he
could be in effect deposed almost at once by a no-confidence vote in the
Commons.
Alan Jones
Richard Fontana
> "Richard Fontana" <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.4.44.020404...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu...
> > On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, Alan Jones wrote:
> [...]>
> > > It's often said that the UK elects a dictator with a five-year term of
> > > office, but the accusation seems even more strikingly applicable to the
> US.
> >
> > But the reference to the UK prime minister as a "dictator" reflects the
> > fact that the UK has a unitary system of government with no
> > true "separation of powers". This makes for admirably efficient
> > government but it has its dangers. The U.S. president today clearly
> > doesn't look very much like a dictator, but it really depends on how
> > much deference to the executive branch is exercised by the other two
> > branches [...]
>
> An interesting exposition - sorry to have snipped so much of it But can you
> tell me who in the US has responsibility for waging war, whether on
> "terrorism" or on a specific country? Do the Senate and the House debate the
> matter and can they forbid a bellicose President to send in the troops?
It's a somewhat complicated matter. The Constitution makes the
President the "Commander-in-Chief" of the armed forces, but Congress is
given the power to declare war and, since it has the power of the
purse and exercises all the usual legislative functions, it's
responsible for providing for the funding of the armed forces and
military efforts.
Most of the military actions the US has been engaged in have not
involved a declaration of war by Congress, and they've pretty much all
been initiated in some way by the president -- I believe this is so
even in cases where there's been a formal declaration of war. In 1973
the Congress passed the War Powers Act over the veto of Richard Nixon.
This act in a sense contains an admission by Congress that military
actions need not involve a formal declaration of war. The Act
requires that any commitment of US forces to engage in hostilities (or
however that should be expressed) be preceded by the president
requesting permission from the Congress for said action. There's also
a requirement that any troop deployment be ended within 60 days unless
Congress authorizes further involvement.
The position of every president since 1973, to the best of my
knowledge, has been that the War Powers Act is an unconstitutional
encroachment on or limitation of the powers of the president as
commander-in-chief. So after September 11th 2001 the Congress issued a
resolution authorizing the President to send troops to Afghanistan and
so forth, and cited the War Powers Act as legal authority for the
resolution. Bush signed the resolution, but he said that it was not
constitutionally required, and he said that he agreed with his
predecessor presidents that the War Powers Act was unconstitutional.
In many military actions the President hasn't bothered to consult with
Congress beforehand at all. But in no such action has the Congress
really failed to support such actions after the fact.
Now the thing is, Congress really is ultimately in control of this
warmaking stuff because it has the power of the purse. For example,
they gave Bush this open-ended authority to use troops to combat
terrorism after September 11th (= GenAm "9-11"). They *could* decide
to cut off funding for the military operations. It just happens to be
the case that they've never had the guts to do this, because they're
afraid that the voters wouldn't like the idea of Congress leaving the
troops in harm's way without funds and stuff. Even at that late point
in the Vietnam Conflict when Congress was most vocally critical of the
war effort, they didn't cut off funding until 1974, after North
Vietnam returned US prisoners of war.
Now, does this mean that the President really has all the power? I don't
think so. Congress *chooses* to be spineless and politically
motivated. It's essentially delegated a lot of its power to the
executive, not just in the area of war powers, and within limits that's
okay. This is precisely why the third branch of government, the
judiciary, doesn't get involved in this sort of thing. They consider
this sort of thing a "political question" which Congress and the
President have to resolve for themselves. As long as Congress doesn't
completely abdicate its basic responsibility as the legislative
branch, it can pretty much pass the buck to the President as it sees
fit.
Geoff Butler
>On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Alec Owen wrote:
>
>> You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime Minister in
>> Britain who is opposed by a majority of
>> voters would not last long and would never be selected by a few judges as
>> in the
>> USA. Don't knock it.
>
>Is this British irony? An article I found on the web written no
>earlier than 1997 says that (then) all fifteen of the postwar
>governments in the UK were based on the governing party winning a
>minority of the electorate in the general election. This is one of the
>most familiar criticisms of the UK political system, that it has allowed
>minority-support parties to become the governing party.
I strongly suspect that article is wrong. It's misusing 'minority' to
mean 'not a majority'. A majority vote (that is, >50%) is rare in a
three-party system. However, most UK elections are won by the part with
a plurality of votes (that is, more than any other party), rather than a
minority.
It's possible to win without a plurality (that's what gerrymandering is
for) but it's not common, and certainly not universal.
-ler
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Richard Fontana <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote
> >On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Alec Owen wrote:
> >
> >> You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime
> >> Minister in Britain who is opposed by a majority of voters would
> >> not last long and would never be selected by a few judges as in
> >> the USA. Don't knock it.
> >
> >Is this British irony? An article I found on the web written no
> >earlier than 1997 says that (then) all fifteen of the postwar
> >governments in the UK were based on the governing party winning a
> >minority of the electorate in the general election. This is one of
> >the most familiar criticisms of the UK political system, that it
> >has allowed minority-support parties to become the governing party.
>
> I strongly suspect that article is wrong. It's misusing 'minority' to
> mean 'not a majority'.
To most Americans, those are equivalent. We distinguish between a
majority and a plurality. In any case "not a majority" would seem to
be equivalent to "who is opposed by a majority" in any country. That
the guy you chose is opposed by a smaller majority than any other
candidate is beside the point.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |As the judge remarked the day that
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 | he acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |To be smut
|It must be ut-
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |Terly without redeeming social
(650)857-7572 | importance.
| Tom Lehrer
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
Mason Barge
wrote:
> In any case, it is the Commons who have the last word: if the new
>PM is defeated in a formal vote of confidence, he must go and the process
>must begin again. The Queen's hereditary position gives her a sort of
>detachment from politics very desirable in someone occasionally required to
>umpire the political process as an impartial facilitator.
>
>By comparison, the US system seems rather unresponsive, with no possibility
>(short of assassination) of replacing the Head of Government in mid-term.
A poor choice of exceptions. It is correct, however, to say that the
Constitution does not allow a president to be replaced for political
reasons.
>It's often said that the UK elects a dictator with a five-year term of
>office, but the accusation seems even more strikingly applicable to the US.
The discussion of responsiveness of a head of government, majority and
minority of the electorate, etc., misses a central issue. The people
of Great Britain can neither elect nor replace their Prime Minister.
They entrust the job to various officials. The President of the
United States is, for the most part, elected by majority vote of the
electorate. Yes, there is an historically-derived election method
that may result in a person being elected with somewhat less than the
majority of the vote, but the exception proves the rule and the outcry
proves the concept.
Technically, the United States also entrusts the election of a
president to elected officials; however, these officials are elected
for one and only one purpose, which is to vote in the presidential
election as their electorate instructs them. (Actually, I believe
that the laws of some states would allow a presidential elector to
vote as he pleases. I have never seen it happen, but it has happened
in the past. Most states, however, give a presidential elector no
discretion.)
The United States' system is indeed closer to the election of a
"dictator" for a limited period than Britain's, in the sense that the
president is invulnerable to recall. This is hardly an accident.
Direct democracy is a terrible system of government. The problem
that both the United States and Great Britain face is making the head
of state responsive to the electorate, without hamstringing him by
recall every time the volatile electorate changes its mind on an
issue.
Britain safeguards its indirect election of a government -- almost
always chosen by a party with a percentage of popular support that
would cause crisis in the U.S. -- by allowing for public pressure (and
ultimately the re-election of MP's) to change the government mid-term.
The United States solves the same problem by more direct election of
the president in the first place and by its system of checks and
balances. Both systems work quite well.
Criticism of the British system, on grounds that the government is
elected by a minority of the votes, or criticism of the U.S. system,
on grounds that the president cannot be turned out of office during
his tenure, fails to judge the system as an entirety. This smacks of
political parochialism. Both systems of government are among the best
in history.
And while I am ranting, anyone who thinks that the Supreme Court
"elected" George W. Bush is incorrect, at least in theory. (Whether
one or more Supreme Court Justices let the outcome affect their vote
is simply an example of the ineleluctable humanity of the judiciary.)
The role of the courts is nothing more or less than to clarify the
laws which govern the manner of election, and to ensure that the laws
have been followed. Of course such a decision affects an election,
just as a referee's decision affects a game of football. And a
referee can be biased or venal . But a referee with final authority
is indispensible to an election or a football game, either one.
--
"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea. If this is tea, please bring me some coffee."
- Abraham Lincoln
Matti Lamprhey
> [...]
> Britain safeguards its indirect election of a government -- almost
> always chosen by a party with a percentage of popular support that
> would cause crisis in the U.S. -- by allowing for public pressure (and
> ultimately the re-election of MP's) to change the government mid-term.
I'm not sure what mechanism(s) you're referring to here.
Matti
Nick Nelson
Alec Owen wrote:
> You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime Minister in
> Britain who is opposed by a majority of voters would not last long
Well, only about 5 years anyway.
Nick
Richard Fontana
> On Thu, 04 Apr 2002 07:43:20 GMT, "Alan Jones" <a...@blueyonder.co.uk>
> wrote:
> > In any case, it is the Commons who have the last word: if the new
> >PM is defeated in a formal vote of confidence, he must go and the process
> >must begin again. The Queen's hereditary position gives her a sort of
> >detachment from politics very desirable in someone occasionally required to
> >umpire the political process as an impartial facilitator.
> >
> >By comparison, the US system seems rather unresponsive, with no possibility
> >(short of assassination) of replacing the Head of Government in mid-term.
>
> A poor choice of exceptions. It is correct, however, to say that the
> Constitution does not allow a president to be replaced for political
> reasons.
That's not true. It is entirely possible for a president to be
replaced for political reasons under the present system. It would just
have to be presented as an impeachment and conviction for "high crimes
and misdemeanors".
> The discussion of responsiveness of a head of government, majority and
> minority of the electorate, etc., misses a central issue. The people
> of Great Britain can neither elect nor replace their Prime Minister.
> They entrust the job to various officials. The President of the
> United States is, for the most part, elected by majority vote of the
> electorate. Yes, there is an historically-derived election method
> that may result in a person being elected with somewhat less than the
> majority of the vote, but the exception proves the rule and the outcry
> proves the concept.
I dunno about that. Forget 2000; consider 1992 and 1996. President
elected without getting a "majority" (AmE sense: "over 50%") of the
popular vote.
> Technically, the United States also entrusts the election of a
> president to elected officials; however, these officials are elected
> for one and only one purpose, which is to vote in the presidential
> election as their electorate instructs them. (Actually, I believe
> that the laws of some states would allow a presidential elector to
> vote as he pleases. I have never seen it happen, but it has happened
> in the past.
I think the last time it happened was 1972, but I'd have to check.
> Criticism of the British system, on grounds that the government is
> elected by a minority of the votes, or criticism of the U.S. system,
> on grounds that the president cannot be turned out of office during
> his tenure, fails to judge the system as an entirety. This smacks of
> political parochialism. Both systems of government are among the best
> in history.
With that I can agree. I understand J. J. Lodder is partial to the
Dutch version of constitutional monarchy, however.
Mason Barge
<rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>On Fri, 5 Apr 2002, Mason Barge wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 04 Apr 2002 07:43:20 GMT, "Alan Jones" <a...@blueyonder.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>> > In any case, it is the Commons who have the last word: if the new
>> >PM is defeated in a formal vote of confidence, he must go and the process
>> >must begin again. The Queen's hereditary position gives her a sort of
>> >detachment from politics very desirable in someone occasionally required to
>> >umpire the political process as an impartial facilitator.
>> >
>> >By comparison, the US system seems rather unresponsive, with no possibility
>> >(short of assassination) of replacing the Head of Government in mid-term.
>>
>> A poor choice of exceptions. It is correct, however, to say that the
>> Constitution does not allow a president to be replaced for political
>> reasons.
>
>That's not true. It is entirely possible for a president to be
>replaced for political reasons under the present system. It would just
>have to be presented as an impeachment and conviction for "high crimes
>and misdemeanors".
This is simply a definitional matter. You are defining "reason" as
"motive". I think it's more productive to consider the legal grounds
as the "reason", since a motive can always be ulterior. And I have
reason to cling to some small thread of optimism, since the Senate
refused to remove Clinton from office.
We would agree, I think, that in the United states, the president
cannot be removed from office for the stated reason that his political
decisions are opposed by the electorate. Whereas, if I understand
correctly, a Prime Minister can be.
>> The discussion of responsiveness of a head of government, majority and
>> minority of the electorate, etc., misses a central issue. The people
>> of Great Britain can neither elect nor replace their Prime Minister.
>> They entrust the job to various officials. The President of the
>> United States is, for the most part, elected by majority vote of the
>> electorate. Yes, there is an historically-derived election method
>> that may result in a person being elected with somewhat less than the
>> majority of the vote, but the exception proves the rule and the outcry
>> proves the concept.
>
>I dunno about that. Forget 2000; consider 1992 and 1996. President
>elected without getting a "majority" (AmE sense: "over 50%") of the
>popular vote.
I recognize that the US is a modified form of direct election. But
election of a president with less than 50% of the popular vote causes
quite a bit of strain, sufficient to raise a real possibility of a
Constitutional amendment.
Well, come to think of it, it is not just the electoral system that
allows a president to be elected with less than a majority vote. The
presence of a popular third candidate can, and has often, have the
same result.
In Georgia we have runoff elections. It is expensive, but I rather
like it. There sure as hell is no quibbling about who wins an
election.
Matti Lamprhey
>
> We would agree, I think, that in the United states, the president
> cannot be removed from office for the stated reason that his political
> decisions are opposed by the electorate. Whereas, if I understand
> correctly, a Prime Minister can be.
I don't think you do, Mason. On what are you basing it?
Matti
Mason Barge
I thought that Parliament could render a vote of "no confidence"
during the PM's tenure, which would effectively remove him from
office. Is this incorrect? If so, I am happy for the political
science lesson. :)
Mason Barge
wrote:
>
>"Dr Robin Bignall" <docr...@red.sylvania> wrote in message
[giant snip]
>> Actually, that's probably near the mark. The British have been
>> muddling along for a couple of thousand years, making it up as we went
>> along, and then calling whatever it was we made up 'tradition' a
>> hundred years later.
>>
>You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime Minister in
>Britain who is opposed by a majority of
>voters would not last long and would never be selected by a few judges as
>in the
>USA. Don't knock it.
I assume you are referring to the Gore-Bush election. What authority
do you have to say that Bush was "selected by a few judges"?
I daresay there are many who would say the same thing, including much
of the American press, but they would be fundamentally mistaken. Easy
cynicism is no substitute for Constitutional authority.
Mason Barge
<matti-...@totally-official.com> wrote:
>"Alan Jones" <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote...
>> [...]
>> There is, I think, a Pondian difference in attitude to language
>> conventions. Americans, speaking very generally, require a degree of
>> certainty and conformity that seems to us in Britain unnecessary. We
>> really don't mind at all whether someone uses -ize or -ise, as long as
>> usage is consistent in a particular piece of writing. If someone chooses
>> to put the full stop before the closing quotation marks, let him -
>> provided, again, that internal consistency is maintained. These are
>> matters of individual style, and as individuals we aren't greatly
>> impressed even by e.g. the weight of the OED editors' arguments for a
>> wider use of -ize. Publishers' style books disagree with one another, and
>> in any case are frequently revised.
>> It does seem odd that Americans, who have traditionally taken such a
>> free and creative line in speech and in demotic writing, are so keen to be
>> rule-bound in more formal contexts and defer so readily to authority.
>
>I'm glad someone else has observed this and found the same aspect odd. It
>would be interesting to hear other comments, particularly from a Leftpondian
>angle. (Or is this restricted to the USA?)
I'm your man.
>I wonder whether perhaps the teaching of English in Leftpondia has tended to
>have an element of teaching it as a foreign language. That, of course, is
>thought by some to need the teaching of rules without much in the way of
>justification. It may be that Britain has also recently found it necessary
>to add a TOEFL approach, and that we are likely to observe the same effects
>here in the coming years.
This is quite humorous and certainly is completely accurate at some
levels. Inner city children might hear educated English for the first
time in school, if then, although television is a more likely source.
Your statement, though, seems to have in mind the educated watchdogs
of American English, and to the degree it does, I would guess the
truth is just the opposite of your TOEFL idea. There is an educated
segment of American society that holds British language and custom in
reverence. To the degree these language Tories espouse strict rules
of usage, it is because they want to protect British English from the
incursions of surfers, crack addicts, Southern stock-car drivers, and
other heathens.
(P.S. Over here, a Tory is someone living in America who is loyal to
the Crown.)
I have never known America to shirk its neologistic duties.
>You hint that this attitude to authority may have a more general scope than
>the language. If it's true, what might be the causes and implications?
The degree of conformism in America and the UK is an interesting
topic, outside of language. In my experience, Americans are indeed
more conformist in some ways, but less so in others. I would propose
that, in general, the United States has more and larger subcultures,
and more mobility between them, but that conformity within American
subcultures is greater than conformity within British subcultures.
>>
>> I must qualify this opinion by saying that it's deduced more from the
>> questions posed in a.e.u. and a.u.e. than to the answers, which are as
>> idiosyncratic as any Brit could wish!
>
>Really? I could have sworn I'd detected the pattern in some of the answers
>too.
>
>Matti
Matti Lamprhey
> "Matti Lamprhey" <matti-...@totally-official.com> wrote:
> >"Mason Barge" <masonbar...@aol.com> responded to Richard Fontana...
> >>
> >> We would agree, I think, that in the United states, the president
> >> cannot be removed from office for the stated reason that his political
> >> decisions are opposed by the electorate. Whereas, if I understand
> >> correctly, a Prime Minister can be.
> >
> >I don't think you do, Mason. On what are you basing it?
>
> during the PM's tenure, which would effectively remove him from
> office. Is this incorrect? If so, I am happy for the political
> science lesson. :)
Yes, the House of Commons can indeed deliver such a vote on Her Majesty's
Government, which by convention will usually lead to a General Election.
Note that it's the government which is affected, not the PM per se.
But the important point is that it's not the electorate, the British people,
who are empowered to deliver that no-confidence vote. So it's not at all
true to say that a PM can be removed from office if the electorate doesn't
like what he's doing. There is no mechanism in place to measure that.
Matti
Alan Jones
"Mason Barge" <masonbar...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:3cada749...@65.82.44.7...
[...]
> The people
> of Great Britain can neither elect nor replace their Prime Minister.
> They entrust the job to various officials.
> Britain safeguards its indirect election of a government -- almost
> always chosen by a party with a percentage of popular support that
> would cause crisis in the U.S. -- by allowing for public pressure (and
> ultimately the re-election of MP's) to change the government mid-term.
This isn't quite right. I'll try again, on the usage newsgroup pretext that
we are discussing words such as democracy and majority.
The people vote for a single person, their MP. On the ballot paper they find
a list of at least two and perhaps a dozen or more candidates, each
representing a party or standing as an independent. An elector may choose
one name only from the list by writing X against it. Whatever the media say,
and whatever an individual elector may suppose, we do not vote for a Party
or its leader - only for the constituency MP. The leader of each Party is
elected by complex rules different in each Party, but voters include sitting
MPs, paid-up members and affiliated organisations such as trades unions. We
have no equivalent of the US Primaries, and when Neil Kinnock held a
triumphalist conference in something like Primary fashion he was ridiculed
and lost an election that he otherwise might have won.The winner in each
constituency is the candidate who gets the most votes, whether by what we
call an "absolute majority" or by the slenderest US-style "plurality". The
new MP has the same voting power whether he or she is there by a handful of
votes or by thousands.
So there are then 659 MPs. One or two may be independent of party, and some
will support small parties, probably local ones in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland. (We have so far never had a Green MP, and it's many years
since there was a Communist.) But most will be the nominees of the three
main parties, and in principle can be relied upon to support their party in
Parliamentary votes. "In principle" because they can, even immediately after
election, declare themselves independent of party or transfer their
allegiance. From the new House of Commons (in theory it could be from the
Lords) the Queen must invite someone to form a Government, as I explained in
an earlier posting. In the first instance that someone will be the leader of
the largest Party. If he or she can do so, and can claim to have the support
of enough MPs to get Bills passed, then he or she will "kiss hands" as Prime
Minister. All other Government posts are in the new PM's gift. No officials
are directly involved.
If, mid-term, the PM loses a formal vote of confidence, the Government by
tradition falls, and that normally means a General Election, however soon
after the last. (Elections must be held at least every five years, but we
don't have a fixed term - the PM decides when to ask the Queen to dissolve
Parliament.) Public opinion, or a hostile Press, may exert *pressure* on the
PM to go, but it's only MPs who have the *power* to vote against him (or
they may simply threaten to do so). Perhaps only the PM will go: his MPs may
bully him into resigning, in advance of a vote of confidence. If his Party
is still the largest, it may be possible for someone else to form a workable
majority, even if that means a coalition. So the non-constitutional pressure
of Press and people may lead to a new Government but no election.
Alan Jones
Richard Fontana
> (P.S. Over here, a Tory is someone living in America who is loyal to
> the Crown.)
Over *where*?
I don't think the word "Tory" is well-known in the US, other than to
(possibly casual) students of Hiberno-Britic culture, of which there
are some, but not a whole freck of a lot. I've never heard "Tory" used
to describe a subset of the people *in the US* -- I mean, we haven't
had a significant population of people strongly loyal to the Crown
since the late 1700s. A lot of those folks up and went Canada way.
There is a lot of supermarket-tabloidian obsession with the Britic
Royal Family in the US, or so it would seem from my trips to the
supermarket. But that's a whole nother thing.
Peter Duncanson
We need to be clear what is meant by 'official' in British
usage. In a government context an 'official' is a civil/public
servant, an appointee, an employee. He/she is not elected.
The elected members of a government are not therefore referred
to as officials.
I believe the usage is different in the US.
>If, mid-term, the PM loses a formal vote of confidence, the Government by
>tradition falls, and that normally means a General Election, however soon
>after the last. (Elections must be held at least every five years, but we
>don't have a fixed term - the PM decides when to ask the Queen to dissolve
>Parliament.) Public opinion, or a hostile Press, may exert *pressure* on the
>PM to go, but it's only MPs who have the *power* to vote against him (or
>they may simply threaten to do so). Perhaps only the PM will go: his MPs may
>bully him into resigning, in advance of a vote of confidence. If his Party
>is still the largest, it may be possible for someone else to form a workable
>majority, even if that means a coalition. So the non-constitutional pressure
>of Press and people may lead to a new Government but no election.
>
--
Peter D.
UK
Polar
(Mason Barge) wrote:
>On Wed, 3 Apr 2002 11:47:21 -0500, "Alec Owen" <ao...@phaedrav.com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>"Dr Robin Bignall" <docr...@red.sylvania> wrote in message
> [giant snip]
>
>>> Actually, that's probably near the mark. The British have been
>>> muddling along for a couple of thousand years, making it up as we went
>>> along, and then calling whatever it was we made up 'tradition' a
>>> hundred years later.
>>>
>>You are correct. That is called pragmatism. It works. A Prime Minister in
>>Britain who is opposed by a majority of
>>voters would not last long and would never be selected by a few judges as
>>in the
>>USA. Don't knock it.
>
>I assume you are referring to the Gore-Bush election. What authority
>do you have to say that Bush was "selected by a few judges"?
>
>I daresay there are many who would say the same thing, including much
>of the American press, but they would be fundamentally mistaken. Easy
>cynicism is no substitute for Constitutional authority.
Read: "The Great Florida Ex-Con Game" by Greg
Palast.
Details of how voters were disenfranchised illegally in Florida.
Lots of good stuff -- that will make you physically ill.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a piece a while back about how he
(the swing vote) agonized over his decision. Hope you're
sleeping well at night, Tony..
Greg Palast also has a new book out that will also make you
physically ill, if the other hasn't succeeded>
"The Best Democracy Money Can Buy".
--
Polar
Evan Kirshenbaum
> So there are then 659 MPs. One or two may be independent of party,
> and some will support small parties, probably local ones in
> Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (We have so far never had a
> Green MP, and it's many years since there was a Communist.) But most
> will be the nominees of the three main parties, and in principle can
> be relied upon to support their party in Parliamentary votes. "In
> principle" because they can, even immediately after election,
> declare themselves independent of party or transfer their
> allegiance. From the new House of Commons (in theory it could be
> from the Lords) the Queen must invite someone to form a Government,
> as I explained in an earlier posting. In the first instance that
> someone will be the leader of the largest Party. If he or she can do
> so, and can claim to have the support of enough MPs to get Bills
> passed, then he or she will "kiss hands" as Prime Minister. All
> other Government posts are in the new PM's gift. No officials are
> directly involved.
But note that much same thing can happen in the UK as in the US. In
the 1997 UK election, at least according to
http://www.election.demon.co.uk/election.html
the Labour party 60 63.4% (418) of the seats in parliament while
receiving only 43.2% of the vote. While I understand that it's a
plurality-based system, it is also a coalition-based system, and with
these results, a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition (not that I
know if that's a reasonable concept) would have drawn 47.45% of the
vote (a plurality), but only had 32% (211) of the seats.
Similarly, in 1992, the Conservative party got an absolute majority
(336, 51%) of seats while only getting 41.9% of the vote to a
potential Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition of 291 seats (44.2%) with
an absolute majority of 52.2% of the vote. In 1987, the Conservatives
had a majority (376) of the seats but 42.3% of the vote, but a
majority of the voters (53.3%) could have come from a coalition of
Labour and what they give as an Alliance of "L" and "SDP". The same
is true of the 1983 elections, with the Conservatives getting an
absolute majority of seats but 42.4% of the vote against a potential
coalition of 53%.
Complaining about the loser of the US presidential election winning
the popular vote is much the same as complaining about the fact that
Labour could form a government without having to include either of the
other two major parties even if together they represent an absolute
majority of the voters.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The whole idea of our government is
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |this: if enough people get together
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |and act in concert, they can take
|something and not pay for it.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | P.J. O'Rourke
(650)857-7572
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Fri, 5 Apr 2002, Mason Barge wrote:
>
> > (P.S. Over here, a Tory is someone living in America who is loyal to
> > the Crown.)
>
> Over *where*?
>
> I don't think the word "Tory" is well-known in the US, other than to
> (possibly casual) students of Hiberno-Britic culture, of which there
> are some, but not a whole freck of a lot. I've never heard "Tory"
> used to describe a subset of the people *in the US*
I beg to differ. I think the word is well known in the US, but is
considered a historical term, which I suspect is what Mason meant.
The Tories were those people *at the time of the American Revolution*
who, living in America, were loyal to the Crown. To most Americans,
that would be the defining characteristic, even if in reality it was
merely a term that happened to describe that group.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |This isn't good. I've seen good,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |and it didn't look anything like
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |this.
| MST3K
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Thomas A Lawson
An excellent posting, but you omitted one crucial point.
Some years ago a snotty British commentator said:
"The Americans elect their king."
Actually, that is just about spot on.
But the key to the American system lies in:
"Eight years and out!"
Tony Cooper
>
> So there are then 659 MPs. One or two may be independent of party, and some
> will support small parties, probably local ones in Scotland, Wales and
> Northern Ireland. (We have so far never had a Green MP, and it's many years
> since there was a Communist.)
Well, though he's not an MP, you have Ken Livingston.
--
Tony Cooper aka: tony_co...@yahoo.com
Provider of Jots and Tittles
Odysseus
>
> Yes, the House of Commons can indeed deliver such a vote on Her Majesty's
> Government, which by convention will usually lead to a General Election.
> Note that it's the government which is affected, not the PM per se.
>
> But the important point is that it's not the electorate, the British people,
> who are empowered to deliver that no-confidence vote. So it's not at all
> true to say that a PM can be removed from office if the electorate doesn't
> like what he's doing. There is no mechanism in place to measure that.
>
considered 'matters of confidence' whose rejection means the government
must fall.
--Odysseus
Mason Barge
<matti-...@totally-official.com> wrote:
You're missing my point. I will grant that having the head of
government selected by MP's is a proxy for a popular vote. Not as
good as an actual vote, I hope you understand, at least assuming that
democracy is good.
But given that, removal of the government by the MP's is equally an
act of the electorate.
Do you see my point? Members of the US Congress cannot remove a
president for political reasons, no matter what. But Americans have a
more direct method of election in the first place. I think the
safeguards are roughly equivalent.
Charles Riggs
<jus...@ditpublishing.com> wrote:
>Some years ago a snotty British commentator said:
>
>"The Americans elect their king."
>
>Actually, that is just about spot on.
>
>But the key to the American system lies in:
>
>"Eight years and out!"
But that is hardly a key point to our system of government. The
restriction has been in existence since FDR's presidency terminated,
and was largely due to some disgruntled Republicans pushing for a
constitutional amendment in order that some dirty Democrat couldn't
again sit as President for more than two terms. They were sorry, of
course, when their boy Eisenhower wasn't allowed to run for a third
time: an election he surely would have won by a landslide. It was an
unfortunate amendment and one that I hope will be repelled by yet
another amendment. If a man like FDR, who many thought was doing his
job well, wants to run again, I say the voters should have the option
of retaining him.
--
Charles Riggs
Matti Lamprhey
> "Matti Lamprhey" <matti-...@totally-official.com> wrote:
> >> "Matti Lamprhey" wrote:
> >> >"Mason Barge" responded to Richard Fontana...
> >> >>
> >> >> We would agree, I think, that in the United states, the president
> >> >> cannot be removed from office for the stated reason that his
> >> >> political decisions are opposed by the electorate. Whereas, if I
> >> >> understand correctly, a Prime Minister can be.
> >> >
> >> >I don't think you do, Mason. On what are you basing it?
> >>
> >> I thought that Parliament could render a vote of "no confidence"
> >> during the PM's tenure, which would effectively remove him from
> >> office. Is this incorrect? If so, I am happy for the political
> >> science lesson. :)
> >
> >Yes, the House of Commons can indeed deliver such a vote on Her Majesty's
> >Government, which by convention will usually lead to a General Election.
> >Note that it's the government which is affected, not the PM per se.
> >
> >But the important point is that it's not the electorate, the British
> >people, who are empowered to deliver that no-confidence vote. So it's
> >not at all true to say that a PM can be removed from office if the
> >electorate doesn't like what he's doing. There is no mechanism in place
> >to measure that.
>
> You're missing my point. I will grant that having the head of
> government selected by MP's is a proxy for a popular vote. Not as
> good as an actual vote, I hope you understand, at least assuming that
> democracy is good.
You raise another incorrect point here, that the head of government is
selected by MPs. This is not at all what happens, and I suggest you read
Alan Jones's fuller description of the process. Some might say that it's
actually more direct than you describe -- that each elector, in selecting
their constituency MP, will vote for the party which is led by the person
they would choose for PM.
>
> But given that, removal of the government by the MP's is equally an
> act of the electorate.
This is far from the case both in theory and in practice; if the PM and his
government selected some course of action which was opposed by the majority
of the electorate but was supported by the House of Commons, there is no way
to bring about the fall of the government. Alright, there is one way -- to
assassinate some existing MPs in order to bring about a sufficient number of
by-elections and thereby to change the composition of the Commons. If you
were to attend your MP's surgery and give him or her the choice between
defying the party whips and death, the response would be the Bennyesqe
"Wait -- I'm thinking about it!"
>
> Do you see my point? Members of the US Congress cannot remove a
> president for political reasons, no matter what. But Americans have a
> more direct method of election in the first place. I think the
> safeguards are roughly equivalent.
But this assumes that it's desirable that a president or a prime minister be
removable "for political reasons", and I would question that premise.
Matti
Richard Fontana
> >"Eight years and out!"
>
> But that is hardly a key point to our system of government. The
> restriction has been in existence since FDR's presidency terminated,
> and was largely due to some disgruntled Republicans pushing for a
> constitutional amendment in order that some dirty Democrat couldn't
> again sit as President for more than two terms. They were sorry, of
> course, when their boy Eisenhower wasn't allowed to run for a third
> time: an election he surely would have won by a landslide. It was an
> unfortunate amendment and one that I hope will be repelled by yet
> another amendment. If a man like FDR, who many thought was doing his
> job well, wants to run again, I say the voters should have the option
> of retaining him.
Good man.
Was Eisenhower that popular in 1960? I wonder how history might have
been different had he been elected to a third term.
Skitt
"Charles Riggs" <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie> wrote:
> Thomas A Lawson <jus...@ditpublishing.com> wrote:
> >
> >But the key to the American system lies in:
> >
> >"Eight years and out!"
>
> But that is hardly a key point to our system of government. The
> restriction has been in existence since FDR's presidency terminated,
> and was largely due to some disgruntled Republicans pushing for a
> constitutional amendment in order that some dirty Democrat couldn't
> again sit as President for more than two terms.
Do the Irish authorities know about your usage of "our"?
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel (Fawlty Towers)
Alan Jones
"Tony Cooper" <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3CAE5C2C...@yahoo.com...
> Alan Jones wrote:
> >
> > So there are then 659 MPs. One or two may be independent of party, and
some
> > will support small parties, probably local ones in Scotland, Wales and
> > Northern Ireland. (We have so far never had a Green MP, and it's many
years
> > since there was a Communist.)
>
> Well, though he's not an MP, you have Ken Livingston.
Come off it! Our Ken's a maverick populist who breeds newts. I would
seriously doubt whether he's read Marx and Engels.
Alan Jones
J. J. Lodder
Not part of the system:
just a cowardly revenge after death of little mean men,
who never could stand up to FDR when he was still alive.
Jan
Skitt
"Alan Jones" <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Come off it! Our Ken's a maverick populist who breeds newts. I would
> seriously doubt whether he's read Marx and Engels.
Now you've done it. Marx and Engels. Damn. Memories.
Why did I say that? Well, when I were a young lad, back in the Eastern
European (heaven forbid they should hear me say "Eastern") land of Latvia,
we sang what is now the official Russian national anthem, the one heard at
the Olympics. The thing that troubles me is that I sang the same song in
Latvian in 1938, but then it was the official hymn of the Communist party.
The words (translated, of course) -- Lenin's Party, Stalin's Party -- still
ring in my ears at the appropriate stanza every time I hear that song.
Strange that it was adopted as the National Anthem of Russia. NTTAWWT, of
course.
Eric Walker
[...]
>The discussion of responsiveness of a head of government,
>majority and minority of the electorate, etc., misses a
>central issue. The people of Great Britain can neither elect
>nor replace their Prime Minister. They entrust the job to
>various officials. The President of the United States is, for
>the most part, elected by majority vote of the electorate.
>Yes, there is an historically-derived election method that may
>result in a person being elected with somewhat less than the
>majority of the vote, but the exception proves the rule and
>the outcry proves the concept.
The data support that contention. From the Columbia
Encyclopedia, 2001 edition--
http://www.bartleby.com/65/el/electora.html
[The Electoral College] has given the nation 14 so-called
minority presidents, i.e., presidents who had a majority
in the electoral college but lacked it in the total national
popular vote:ÿJames Polk (1844), Zachary Taylor (1848), James
Buchanan (1856), Abraham Lincoln (1860, but not 1864),
Rutherford B. Hayes (1876), James A. Garfield (1880), Grover
Cleveland (1884 and 1892), Benjamin Harrison (1888), Woodrow
Wilson (1912 and 1916), Harry S. Truman (1948), John F.
Kennedy (1960), Richard M. Nixon (1968, but not 1972), Bill
Clinton (1992 and 1996), and George W. Bush (2000). Only
Hayes, Harrison, and Bush, however, failed to win a plurality
of the popular vote.
In short: only 17 times has a candidate with less than a true
majority of the popular vote been elected; more germane, only
thrice has the candidate with the *plurality* of the popular
vote not been elected, none in well over a century. The idea
of a president who is not "the people's choice" is a chimera;
Bush is a freak (complete that sentence as your sensibilities
may suggest).
[...]
>And while I am ranting, anyone who thinks that the Supreme
>Court "elected" George W. Bush is incorrect, at least in
>theory. (Whether one or more Supreme Court Justices let the
>outcome affect their vote is simply an example of the
>ineleluctable humanity of the judiciary.) The role of the
>courts is nothing more or less than to clarify the laws which
>govern the manner of election, and to ensure that the laws
>have been followed. Of course such a decision affects an
>election, just as a referee's decision affects a game of
>football. And a referee can be biased or venal. But a
>referee with final authority is indispensible to an election
>or a football game, either one.
But there remains always the difference between _de jure_ and
_de facto_.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
Owlcroft House
Eric Walker
[...]
>> Yes, there is an historically-derived election method
>> that may result in a person being elected with somewhat less
>> than the majority of the vote, but the exception proves the
>> rule and the outcry proves the concept.
>
>I dunno about that. Forget 2000; consider 1992 and 1996.
>President elected without getting a "majority" (AmE sense:
>"over 50%") of the popular vote.
I think it safe to say that most Americans feel that a
presidential election is well and truly won by the candidate
who receives a *plurality* of the popular vote. The U.S. is a
two-party nation, and the difference between plurality and true
majority is thus almost always--especially in modern times--
trivial. And the fact is that in all of American history, only
three times has a candidate been elected who did not receive a
plurality of the popular vote; prior to Shrub, the last
occasion was in 1888.
[...]
The various "cures" often suggested for the current system
show, in the main, a huge ignorance of that system. I think it
likely that we could do better, but not by bulling in full of
vigor and little else, including knowledge and wisdom.
Alan Jones
"Evan Kirshenbaum" <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote in message
news:adsh3k...@hpl.hp.com...
A Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government is not a reasonable
concept: the Liberal Democrats are in most respects well to the left of
the Labour Party. In a finely-balanced House, the LDs could nevertheless
support the other main opposition party in a vote of confidence, in the hope
of unseating the Government and doing well in a subsequent General Election.
> Similarly, in 1992, the Conservative party got an absolute majority
> (336, 51%) of seats while only getting 41.9% of the vote to a
> potential Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition of 291 seats (44.2%) with
> an absolute majority of 52.2% of the vote. In 1987, the Conservatives
> had a majority (376) of the seats but 42.3% of the vote, but a
> majority of the voters (53.3%) could have come from a coalition of
> Labour and what they give as an Alliance of "L" and "SDP". The same
> is true of the 1983 elections, with the Conservatives getting an
> absolute majority of seats but 42.4% of the vote against a potential
> coalition of 53%.
These are figures quoted by those who favour some kind of proportional
representation to make the balance of seats in the Commons roughly match the
balance of party support in the country. Such a system would, however, have
its own disadvantages: e.g. there might have to be large multi-member
"constituencies" which would destroy the sense of one's MP as the
representative of a small local area. It would also constitutionally
enshrine the notion of the [1]Party, as opposed to the assembly at
Westminster of individuals who are elected at least partly on personal
grounds. The MP's duty is not to support [2]his Party, if any, but to use
his judgment to serve first the country and then his constituency as he
thinks best. Confidence in him shown by direct election in a small
constituency gives him the best basis, the greatest moral authority, to
exercise that judgment. It is judgment, by the way: the MP is not obliged or
expected to reflect majority opinion in his constituency on any particular
topic, which is why the death penalty is very unlikely to be reintroduced
though opinion polls consistently show popular support for it.
[1] Very few people in Britain are members of any political Party. There is
no equivalent of the US primaries when enrolled supporters vote for
prospective candidates.
[2] Throughout, for "his" read "his or her" etc.
Alan Jones