Can I say "Is John here?"
cyberdude
I dial to my friend, John, and I want to speak to him. After
connecting, can I say:
Is John here?
in addition to
Is John home.
?
Thanks.
David
Harvey Van Sickle
"Is John here?" would be an odd question to ask, as you're not in the
same location as the person who answers the phone.
"Is John there?" would be fine, though.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian (30 years) and British (23 years)
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van
Andrew Taylor
I suppose "Is John here?" is consistent with the US usage "Who is
this?",
which always seems a pointless question to me...
Andrew Taylor
Jess Askin
"Andrew Taylor" <andrew...@cantab.net> wrote in message
news:1125479827.1...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Not so much pointless as impertinent.
--
Jess Askin
Iowa, USA
FRAN
Or perhaps "Is that John?" (if you're not sure) IF not:
Could I speak with John?
Fran
Jim Lawton
"with" sounds U.S. to me ;
I'd say "Can I speak to John?".
--
Jim
"a single species has come to dominate ...
reproducing at bacterial levels, almost as an
infectious plague envelops its host"
http://tinyurl.com/c88xs
FRAN
Really? If it is perhaps I've picked it up.
> I'd say "Can I speak to John?".
> --
Yes that's also possible, though "with" sounds a touch more polite,
don't you think? Less like a monologue and more like dialogue.
Fran
John Lawler
>Harvey Van Sickle writes:
>> cyberdude writes
>> > I dial to my friend, John, and I want to speak to him. After
>> > connecting, can I say:
>> > Is John here?
>> > in addition to
>> > Is John home.
>> > ?
>> "Is John here?" would be an odd question to ask, as you're not in the
>> same location as the person who answers the phone.
>> "Is John there?" would be fine, though.
>I suppose "Is John here?" is consistent with the US usage "Who is
>this?", which always seems a pointless question to me...
The deictic terms "this" and "that" have different references on the
telephone in English. Fillmore points out a number of them in his classic
'Santa Cruz Deixis Lectures'.
For instance, in statements (but not questions) "this" refers to the
speaker, while in questions (but not statements) "this" refers to the
addressee, leading to sentences like the following, which would be
ridiculous in any context except over the telephone.
This is Mary; is this John?
Similarly, "that" refers to background sounds around the speaker (in
statements) or the addressee (in questions).
That was my doorbell; is that Bill's voice?
However, "here" and "there" have their usual first- and second-person
senses on the phone. "Here" is "close to me", and "there" is "close to
you"; these are nicely distinguished on the phone, referring to quite
disjoint locations. As Andrew points out, this normal use of "here" and
"there" on the phone is not consistent with the telephonic use of "this"
and "that", which are sensitive to the kind of sentence they're in.
By the way, in Mexican Spanish, one doesn't need either "here" *or* "there"
in this situation. On the phone, one simply asks
¿Está Juan?
Since the prototypic sense of "estar" refers to being in a location (it
comes from "stare", the Latin verb for "stand"), this contextually has to
mean "Is Juan there?", and conventionally counts as a request to speak to
him, just as it does in English. Spanish gets a lot of mileage out of its
distinction between "ser" and "estar" (though I always thought having four
ways to say "was" -- each verb has both imperfect and preterite forms, all
irregular, natch -- was maybe too much of a good thing).
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler Michigan Linguistics
-------------------------------------------------------------
"El presente está solo. La memoria erige el tiempo.
Sucesión y engaño es la rutina del reloj.
El año no es menos vano que la vana historia."
-- Jorge Luis Borges, 'El Instante'
Jim Lawton
snip
>
>
>> I'd say "Can I speak to John?".
>> --
>
>Yes that's also possible, though "with" sounds a touch more polite,
Ah :- "Can I speak to John, please?".
>don't you think? Less like a monologue and more like dialogue.
I'm sure you are logically correct, but I'm already hearing office workers in
the UK saying "Who is this, please?" and I really don't like either formation.
>
>Fran
>
>> Jim
>> "a single species has come to dominate ...
>> reproducing at bacterial levels, almost as an
>> infectious plague envelops its host"
>> http://tinyurl.com/c88xs
--
Ross Howard
wrought:
>The deictic terms "this" and "that" have different references on the
>telephone in English. Fillmore points out a number of them in his classic
>'Santa Cruz Deixis Lectures'.
>
>For instance, in statements (but not questions) "this" refers to the
>speaker, while in questions (but not statements) "this" refers to the
>addressee, leading to sentences like the following, which would be
>ridiculous in any context except over the telephone.
>
> This is Mary; is this John?
>
>Similarly, "that" refers to background sounds around the speaker (in
>statements) or the addressee (in questions).
>
> That was my doorbell; is that Bill's voice?
>
>However, "here" and "there" have their usual first- and second-person
>senses on the phone. "Here" is "close to me", and "there" is "close to
>you"; these are nicely distinguished on the phone, referring to quite
>disjoint locations. As Andrew points out, this normal use of "here" and
>"there" on the phone is not consistent with the telephonic use of "this"
>and "that", which are sensitive to the kind of sentence they're in.
>
>By the way, in Mexican Spanish,
All versions of Spanish, I think -- at least the ones I'm familiar
with (Peninsular, Venezuelan, Colombian, Cuban, Argentinian).
>one doesn't need either "here" *or* "there"
>in this situation. On the phone, one simply asks
>
> ¿Está Juan?
>
>Since the prototypic sense of "estar" refers to being in a location (it
>comes from "stare", the Latin verb for "stand"), this contextually has to
>mean "Is Juan there?", and conventionally counts as a request to speak to
>him, just as it does in English.
This applies not just to phone calls. Any English use of "be there" to
mean "be present at a location previously mentioned or assumed to be
implicit" will almost certainly be translated as bare *estar*:
I looked for her at the party, but she wasn't
there.
*La busqué en la fiesta pero no estaba.*
>Spanish gets a lot of mileage out of its
>distinction between "ser" and "estar" (though I always thought having four
>ways to say "was" -- each verb has both imperfect and preterite forms, all
>irregular, natch -- was maybe too much of a good thing).
Multiply those four (eight, if you count the subjunctive as separate
forms to memorise) by the three "theres" (*ahí*, *allí* and *allá*)
and you can understand why they gave up and translated the title of
the movie *Being There* as . . . *Bienvenido, Mr. Chance*!
>
>-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler Michigan Linguistics
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> "El presente está solo. La memoria erige el tiempo.
> Sucesión y engaño es la rutina del reloj.
> El año no es menos vano que la vana historia."
> -- Jorge Luis Borges, 'El Instante'
--
Ross Howard
Alan Jones
"FRAN" <fran...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1125485223.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
[...]
> Jim Lawton wrote:
(30 years) and British (23 years)
>> >
>> "with" sounds U.S. to me ;
> Really? If it is perhaps I've picked it up.
>> I'd say "Can I speak to John?".
> Yes that's also possible, though "with" sounds a touch more polite,
> don't you think? Less like a monologue and more like dialogue.
[...]
"Speak with" is not much used in BrE. Like Jim, I immediately register it as
AmE. "Speak to" doesn't sound even slightly impolite to a British ear. It's
true that "Behave yourself, or I shall have to speak to your parents" sounds
threatening, but that's because of the context. There are other
possibilities: "Is John there? I'd like a word with him if he's free", for
example.
Alan Jones
R H Draney
>
>Andrew Taylor wrote:
>>
>> I suppose "Is John here?" is consistent with the US usage "Who is
>> this?",
>> which always seems a pointless question to me...
>
>
>Could I speak with John?
If you're calling a number at which you've been *told* John may be found, one
thing you want to avoid is "do you have a John there?"...otherwise you may be
told that they do, and that they already know their refrigerator is running, and
that Prince Albert is not in the can....r
Evan Kirshenbaum
> "Is John here?" would be an odd question to ask, as you're not in
> the same location as the person who answers the phone.
Unless it's a more-than-two-way call. I had a phone meeting this
morning, and my first question after being greeted was "So, who's here
so far?" "Is John here?" would have been perfectly reasonable
(ignoring the fact that the response would have been "John who?")
Somehow, the expectation of more than two people participating gives a
phone call a location. Much the same thing happens, well, here.
There's no "here" in an email exchange, but there is in a newsgroup.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The Elizabethans had so many words
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |for the female genitals that it is
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |quite hard to speak a sentence of
|modern English without inadvertently
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |mentioning at least three of them.
(650)857-7572 | Terry Pratchett
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
Or just "far from me". "I tried to call them in Biloxi, but they
weren't there. Have you heard from them since the hurricane?"
> these are nicely distinguished on the phone, referring to quite
> disjoint locations. As Andrew points out, this normal use of "here" and
> "there" on the phone is not consistent with the telephonic use of "this"
> and "that", which are sensitive to the kind of sentence they're in.
I could be wrong, but I think what Andrew was saying was that your
remarks on "this" don't apply in UK English. They certainly apply in
my English, though--very interesting.
(By the way, for an apparently spontaneous native-speaker exception to
your strictures on adverbs between verbs and their direct objects, see
<http://tinyurl.com/dxoh4> or
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/browse_frm/thread/581fd30d7438a0cc/fad768258cca022f?lnk=st&q=speak+fluently+alt.usage.english&rnum=1#fad768258cca022f>.
"The BBC corresponents in the neighbouring European
countries are neither mentally lazy nor do they have poor language
skills.
Most of them speak fluently the language of the European country to
which
they have been assigned.")
> By the way, in Mexican Spanish, one doesn't need either "here" *or* "there"
> in this situation. On the phone, one simply asks
>
> ¿Está Juan?
>
> Since the prototypic sense of "estar" refers to being in a location (it
> comes from "stare", the Latin verb for "stand"), this contextually has to
> mean "Is Juan there?", and conventionally counts as a request to speak to
> him, just as it does in English. Spanish gets a lot of mileage out of its
> distinction between "ser" and "estar" (though I always thought having four
> ways to say "was" -- each verb has both imperfect and preterite forms, all
> irregular, natch -- was maybe too much of a good thing).
Due to some oversight, the imperfect of "estar" is regular.
Both verbs also have perfect aspects that often translate as "was". As
a young Argentinian woman wrote to me at the Spanish Wikipedia, "No he
sido yo quien cambió la cita de Oppenheimer, pero ahora suena mucho
mejor." (For non-speakers of Spanish, that looks like "It has not been
I who changed the quotation from Oppenheimer, but now it sounds much
better." I had asked about one specific revision.)
For at least some speakers at least in Spain, the
preterite-of-haber-plus-past-participle form seems to have lost all
perfective meaning as I understand it in English, or so they said back
when I was in alt.usage.spanish. That form just indicates recentness.
As for "too much of a good thing", I agree with you completely. I
haven't figured out what the preterite of "estar" is for, but when I
do, I'm planning to say --!Ahi 'stuvo!
--
Jerry Friedman
Ross Howard
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrought:
>John Lawler wrote:
>> By the way, in Mexican Spanish, one doesn't need either "here" *or* "there"
>> in this situation. On the phone, one simply asks
>>
>> ¿Está Juan?
>>
>> Since the prototypic sense of "estar" refers to being in a location (it
>> comes from "stare", the Latin verb for "stand"), this contextually has to
>> mean "Is Juan there?", and conventionally counts as a request to speak to
>> him, just as it does in English. Spanish gets a lot of mileage out of its
>> distinction between "ser" and "estar" (though I always thought having four
>> ways to say "was" -- each verb has both imperfect and preterite forms, all
>> irregular, natch -- was maybe too much of a good thing).
>
>Due to some oversight, the imperfect of "estar" is regular.
>
>Both verbs also have perfect aspects that often translate as "was". As
>a young Argentinian woman wrote to me at the Spanish Wikipedia, "No he
>sido yo quien cambió la cita de Oppenheimer, pero ahora suena mucho
>mejor." (For non-speakers of Spanish, that looks like "It has not been
>I who changed the quotation from Oppenheimer, but now it sounds much
>better." I had asked about one specific revision.)
>
>For at least some speakers at least in Spain, the
>preterite-of-haber-plus-past-participle form seems to have lost all
>perfective meaning as I understand it in English, or so they said back
>when I was in alt.usage.spanish. That form just indicates recentness.
The most noticeable difference between SpSp and ArgSp is actually the
other way round. Argentians tend to say ""Hiciste la cama?" instead of
"¿Has hecho la cama?" (Have you made the bed?). Curiously, the same
Pondial difference can sometimes be found in BrE and AmE, with us
sometimes preferring "have you seen" where you would say "did you
see".
>
>As for "too much of a good thing", I agree with you completely. I
>haven't figured out what the preterite of "estar" is for, but when I
>do, I'm planning to say --!Ahi 'stuvo!
Well, it's the ... yes... I mean, it's the .... er... completed action
of ... er, being there: "Todos los miembros del consejo estuvieron en
la reunión* (All the board members were at the meeting), but I feel
your pain -- it took me about ten years of full immersion to reach
the point where I would intuitively get it right without having to
think about it. Deciding on the spot whether "was" should be *fue*,
*era*, *estuvo* or *estaba* must be the most difficult thing for
foreign learners of Spanish to truly master. (There's also some
unncessary mystification involved, though, it must be said: many
native speakers admit that a lot of the time that more than one option
would be quite acceptable, at least in colloquial speech.)
--
Ross Howard
CDB
"Ross Howard" <ggu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:hvrbh1dn8mr4j70jf...@4ax.com...
> On 31 Aug 2005 10:48:37 -0700, "jerry_f...@yahoo.com"
[...]
In keeping with the first para above, then, would an Argentine reject
"han estado en la reunión" as unidiomatic? It's what I would say if I
wanted to convey completed action; "estuvieron" would mean something
more like "were there at one particular point." (I learned Spanish
mostly in Buenos Aires around 1960, but never studied it formally.)
Harvey Van Sickle
> Harvey Van Sickle <harve...@ntlworld.com> writes:
>
>> "Is John here?" would be an odd question to ask, as you're not in
>> the same location as the person who answers the phone.
>
> Unless it's a more-than-two-way call. I had a phone meeting this
> morning, and my first question after being greeted was "So, who's
> here so far?" "Is John here?" would have been perfectly
> reasonable (ignoring the fact that the response would have been
> "John who?")
Good point. (In context, though, my response was to a question which
specified that someone had "dial[led} to his friend, John," which I
think it's safe to assume exclues the category of a more-than-two-way-
call.)
I'm curious, though: purely as a reference point[1], what proportion
of people here have been involved in multiple-person calls?
And of those who have, would you classify it as a "rare", or "fairly
regular" occurence?
[1] My one-man-band operation has no links to companies which do this,
so I honestly don't have the foggiest idea of how common an occurence
it might be -- in practice, as opposed to theory.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> I'm curious, though: purely as a reference point[1], what proportion
> of people here have been involved in multiple-person calls?
>
> And of those who have, would you classify it as a "rare", or "fairly
> regular" occurence?
For me it's "frequent". I have a standing weekly meeting with people
from Washington, Paris, Bangalore, and occasionally other places. I
have probably another one or two phone conferences a week where I am
"on the phone" with a couple of remote people. And I have at least a
couple of meetings a week in which I'm in a room with other people
while other people are attending by phone--still "here" as far as the
meeting is concerned.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |We never met anyone who believed in
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |fortune cookies. That's astounding.
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |Belief in the precognitive powers
|of an Asian pastry is really no
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |wackier than belief in ESP,
(650)857-7572 |subluxation, or astrology, but you
|just don't hear anyone preaching
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |Scientific Cookie-ism.
| Penn and Teller
the Omrud
> I'm curious, though: purely as a reference point[1], what proportion
> of people here have been involved in multiple-person calls?
>
> And of those who have, would you classify it as a "rare", or "fairly
> regular" occurence?
>
> [1] My one-man-band operation has no links to companies which do this,
> so I honestly don't have the foggiest idea of how common an occurence
> it might be -- in practice, as opposed to theory.
I do this just about daily - often more than once in a day. I work
more than half my time at home. I have a desk in our office in
Manchester but I don't work directly with anybody there, so
travelling into the city doesn't give me any benefit in this area.
My department of 60 or so is spread all over the UK and has one or
two representatives in addition in each country in Western Europe.
And we frequently have to have discussions with our Japanese
colleagues, and with the likes of Microsoft, CA, Oracle and so on in
the USA.
I'm involved in three or four projects, each of which has a weekly
review by voice conference. To get all of the staff involved in each
project together would take up a whole day for between 4 and 20
people. Each.
--
David
=====
replace usenet with the
Areff
> I'm curious, though: purely as a reference point[1], what proportion
> of people here have been involved in multiple-person calls?
I have been in a w*rk-related capacity -- it's fairly common. However, I
don't think I've ever initiated a multiple-person call, or at any rate I
have no idea how to do it.
> And of those who have, would you classify it as a "rare", or "fairly
> regular" occurence?
It's certainly less regular than person-to-person calls (which very often
involve more than two people, often three or more people), but not rare
enough to be rare.
Skitt
> Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
>> I'm curious, though: purely as a reference point[1], what proportion
>> of people here have been involved in multiple-person calls?
>
> I have been in a w*rk-related capacity -- it's fairly common.
> However, I don't think I've ever initiated a multiple-person call, or
> at any rate I have no idea how to do it.
I have participated in several conference calls. Some were video-conference
calls.
>> And of those who have, would you classify it as a "rare", or "fairly
>> regular" occurence?
>
> It's certainly less regular than person-to-person calls (which very
> often involve more than two people, often three or more people), but
> not rare enough to be rare.
Mine were of the kind where there are about a dozen participants on each
end.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
Theodore Heise
Harvey Van Sickle <harve...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I'm curious, though: purely as a reference point[1], what
> proportion of people here have been involved in multiple-person
> calls?
>
> And of those who have, would you classify it as a "rare", or
> "fairly regular" occurence?
>
> [1] My one-man-band operation has no links to companies which do
> this, so I honestly don't have the foggiest idea of how common
> an occurence it might be -- in practice, as opposed to theory.
In my company, calls with only two people are probably even less
common than conference calls (what we call multiple-person calls).
Rather than trying to use conferencing functions built in to any
phone, we typically distribute a number to a bridge that each
location can dial in to. In fact, many of our employees have
their own teleconferencing number.
--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <th...@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA
Sara Lorimer
> I'm curious, though: purely as a reference point[1], what proportion
> of people here have been involved in multiple-person calls?
I've participated in a handful of TDD calls, and blessedly few
conference calls. Oh, and many, many calls of the "Mom, pick up the
downstairs phone, it's Jane!" variety.
--
SML
who doesn't actually know Jane
Mark Brader
> I'm curious, though: purely as a reference point..., what proportion
>
> And of those who have, would you classify it as a "rare", or "fairly
> regular" occurence?
For me it's probably a few times a year, although I don't remember
when the last time I did it was.
There are two categories. The more common is three-way calls among
family and friends, for trying to arrange some occasion when that
will involve all of us. For a while I paid a monthly subscription
to Bell Canada that allowed me free three-way calling on my home
line, but I found I wasn't using it often enough, and switched
to pay-per-use. I'm just as likely to be making the call from work
anyway, and it's free for the company.
In these conversations I am pretty much always the one who suggests it
would be sensible to make the call three-way. Nobody else among my
family and friends ever seems to think of it.
The other category of multiple-person call involves only two telephones
and therefore may not be what Harvey meant at all; one of the phones
is a speakerphone with several people gathered around it. I've had
quite a number of business meetings like that.
In Bell Canada territory, by the way, you make a three-way call by
first making or receiving an ordinary call, then adding a party.
You do this by first "flashing the hook" (telephony jargon for
hanging up momentarily) or by pressing a button that does the
equivalent for you if the phone has one ("flash" on my office phone).
This is acknowledged with "stutter dial tone" (dit dit dit daaaaaaaa...),
and the person you were talking is then put on hold.
If you have free three-way calling, you now simply dial the third
party; if not, you authorize payment by dialing "*71", the dial tone
resumes, and then you dial the third party. You establish the three-
way call by flashing the hook again; you can do this as soon as you
hear ringing ("ringback"), or wait until the party answers. A double
flash hangs up on the third party.
Before we had all this, it would have been necessary to call the
operator and ask for a conference call; this method is still available,
I think, for people needing to connect more than three lines or needing
things set up in advance.
--
Mark Brader | I passed a sign that said "you are here",
Toronto | but I didn't entirely believe it.
m...@vex.net | --Michael Levine
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Mark Brader
> I dial to my friend, John...
I was momentarily confused by this use of "dial". We would usually
"phone" (or "telephone") or "call" (perhaps with "on the phone"
added explicitly. Or "I dial my friend John's number", but in that
case there is no implication that the call was answered, or even
that John's phone rang.
If you don't want to imply that John answered the call, you could
say things like "I phone my friend John, but someone else answers"
or "I phone my friend John's house".
--
Mark Brader | "I can direct dial today a man my parents warred with.
Toronto | They wanted to kill him, I want to sell software to him."
m...@vex.net | -- Brad Templeton
Areff
> "David" writes:
>> I dial to my friend, John...
>
> I was momentarily confused by this use of "dial". We would usually
> "phone" (or "telephone") or "call" (perhaps with "on the phone"
> added explicitly. Or "I dial my friend John's number", but in that
> case there is no implication that the call was answered, or even
> that John's phone rang.
"Dial in" [to someone] seems possible in some contexts.
Skitt
I suppose "dial out" would work in some contexts.
Robert Bannister
"With" sounds like young Australians who have been brought up on
American TV. We speak "to" people. Speaking with sounds as if you're in
the same room, speaking, but not listening to each other.
--
Rob Bannister
wordnerd
I think the most sensible thing to do would be to hang up.
T
Robert Bannister wrote:
> FRAN wrote:
>
> > Jim Lawton wrote:
> >
> >>On 31 Aug 2005 03:09:19 -0700, "FRAN" <fran...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Andrew Taylor wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>On 31 Aug 2005, cyberdude wrote
[etc.]
Mark Brader
>>>> I dial to my friend, John...
Mark Brader:
>>> I was momentarily confused by this use of "dial". We would usually
>>> "phone" (or "telephone") or "call" (perhaps with "on the phone"
>>> added explicitly. Or "I dial my friend John's number" ...
Richard Fontana:
>> "Dial in" [to someone] seems possible in some contexts.
"Skitt" writes:
> I suppose "dial out" would work in some contexts.
Seems to me that you can only dial in to, or dial out from, a *system*:
either a telephone system or a computer.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto The uucp stings you!--More--
m...@vex.net Your purse feels lighter.
Stephen Hayes
Andrew Taylor wrote in a message to All:
AT> From: "Andrew Taylor" <andrew...@cantab.net>
AT> Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
> On 31 Aug 2005, cyberdude wrote
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I dial to my friend, John, and I want to speak to him. After
> > connecting, can I say:
> >
> > Is John here?
> >
> > in addition to
> >
> > Is John home.
> >
> > ?
>
> "Is John here?" would be an odd question to ask, as you're not in the
> same location as the person who answers the phone.
>
> "Is John there?" would be fine, though.
AT> I suppose "Is John here?" is consistent with the US usage "Who is
AT> this?",
AT> which always seems a pointless question to me...
I say, "May I speak to John, please?"
I get very annoyed with people who phone me and say "Who's speaking?"
I now respond "Who wants to know?"
--
Steve Hayes
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail: haye...@hotmail.com - If it doesn't work, see webpage.
FamilyNet <> Internet Gated Mail
http://www.familynet-international.org
Stephen Hayes
Robert Bannister wrote in a message to All:
RB> From: Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au>
> Yes that's also possible, though "with" sounds a touch more polite,
> don't you think? Less like a monologue and more like dialogue.
RB> "With" sounds like young Australians who have been brought up on
RB> American TV. We speak "to" people. Speaking with sounds as if
RB> you're in the same room, speaking, but not listening to each
RB> other.
But rather speaking to the same audience, from the same platform (AmE=podium).
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Seems to me that you can only dial in to, or dial out from, a *system*:
> either a telephone system or a computer.
You can dial in to a meeting, too, in my experience. Typically, this
will be when the meeting (and most of the participants) are at a
physical location and you are joining by phone.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |ActiveX is pretty harmless anyway.
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |It can't affect you unless you
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |install Windows, and who would be
|foolish enough to do that?
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Peter Moylan
(650)857-7572
Liz
> Hi,
>
> I dial to my friend, John, and I want to speak to him. After
> connecting, can I say:
>
> Is John here?
I would say:
"This is cyberdude. Is John there?"
Areff
> m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) writes:
>
>> Seems to me that you can only dial in to, or dial out from, a *system*:
>> either a telephone system or a computer.
>
> You can dial in to a meeting, too, in my experience. Typically, this
> will be when the meeting (and most of the participants) are at a
> physical location and you are joining by phone.
That's my experience too -- common businessese usage.
Skitt
>>>>> I dial to my friend, John...
>
> Mark Brader:
>>>> I was momentarily confused by this use of "dial". We would usually
>>>> "phone" (or "telephone") or "call" (perhaps with "on the phone"
>>>> added explicitly. Or "I dial my friend John's number" ...
>
> Richard Fontana:
>>> "Dial in" [to someone] seems possible in some contexts.
>
>> I suppose "dial out" would work in some contexts.
>
> Seems to me that you can only dial in to, or dial out from, a
> *system*: either a telephone system or a computer.
That's pretty much the context I had in mind. To dial out from work, I had
to dial a 9 first. Or an 8, in long-distance cases.
ObAttributions: Man, you made me do extra work to match your style. I had
to move the standard top attribution to your preferred place. The ">" count
is screwed up, of course. Why do you want to be so different from just
about everybody else? To gain notoriety, like RJV?
Mark Brader
> ObAttributions: Man, you made me do extra work to match your style...
> Why do you want to be so different from just about everybody else?
I don't; I want everybody else to realize that the way I do it is
obviously the right way, and adopt it.
--
Mark Brader | "Follow my posts and choose the opposite
m...@vex.net | of what I use. That generally works here."
Toronto | --Tony Cooper
Sara Lorimer
> FamilyNet International Newsgate
>
> Andrew Taylor wrote in a message to All:
>
> AT> I suppose "Is John here?" is consistent with the US usage "Who is
> AT> this?",
> AT> which always seems a pointless question to me...
>
> I say, "May I speak to John, please?"
I say "This is Sara Lorimer. Is John available?"
--
SML
Ross Howard
>"Skitt" writes:
>> ObAttributions: Man, you made me do extra work to match your style...
>> Why do you want to be so different from just about everybody else?
>
>I don't; I want everybody else to realize that the way I do it is
>obviously the right way, and adopt it.
Mark, meet Bob.
--
Ross Howard
Harvey Van Sickle
Isn't that almost demanding a reply along the lines of "He sure is,
honey"?
R H Draney
>
>On 01 Sep 2005, Sara Lorimer wrote
>
>
>Isn't that almost demanding a reply along the lines of "He sure is,
>honey"?
Heard at least once a week in my office:
Q: "Are you free?"
A: "No, but my rates are reasonable."
....r
Harvey Van Sickle
The response I heard years ago was "What are you -- some sort of
bargain hunter?"
wordnerd
"Cyberdude is looking for John. Will John talk to Cyberdude?"
Robert Bannister
> I think it's better phone manner to use the third person:
>
> "Cyberdude is looking for John. Will John talk to Cyberdude?"
That sounds really weird.
--
Rob Bannister
Stephen Hayes
Sara Lorimer wrote in a message to All:
SL> From: que.sara....@gmail.com (Sara Lorimer)
SL> Stephen Hayes <Stephen.Hayesp...@fmlynet.org> wrote:
> FamilyNet International Newsgate
>
> Andrew Taylor wrote in a message to All:
>
> AT> I suppose "Is John here?" is consistent with the US usage "Who is
> AT> this?",
> AT> which always seems a pointless question to me...
>
> I say, "May I speak to John, please?"
SL> I say "This is Sara Lorimer. Is John available?"
That would work too.
Linz
> I think it's better phone manner to use the third person:
>
> "Cyberdude is looking for John. Will John talk to Cyberdude?"
In what context? Not in most English-language phone conversations.
--
Posting at the top of an article because that is where your cursor
happened to be is like crapping in your pants because that is
where your arse happened to be.
wordnerd
You must not be using the special voice. If you don't use the special
voice, it loses the magic, admittedly.
wordnerd
Linz wrote:
> wordnerd wrote:
> > I think it's better phone manner to use the third person:
> >
> > "Cyberdude is looking for John. Will John talk to Cyberdude?"
>
> In what context? Not in most English-language phone conversations.
p.s. It is particularly important to enunciate "cyberdude" properly.
Don't mumble. It is pronounced "Cy - ber - dude".
mark
l...@where.abouts returned briefly from exile to say ...
> "cyberdude" wrote
> > I dial to my friend, John, and I want to speak to him. After
> > connecting, can I say:
> >
> > Is John here?
>
> I would say:
>
> "This is cyberdude. Is John there?"
Wouldn't John's mate get confused that Liz was calling herself
"cyberdude"?
--
"When replying to Nigerian lawyers that offer millions in return for a
£50 000 finders fee, only send half the money. Keep the rest until you
get the paperwork."
- An important tip for /Viz/ readers, by Dr Maldwin Palmer