well-served or well served
j
correct:
"These people have not always been well served by the system in the
past."
or
"These people have not always been well-served by the system in the
past."
Thanks.
John O'Flaherty
wrote:
I would use a hyphen if I had to use an adjective form, but in the
example you give I would say "have not always been served well by the
system". You're talking less about a persistent attribute of "these
people" than about a transient relationship.
--
John
the Omrud
The first. "served" is a verb and "well" is an adverb which modifies
the verb.
"well-served" is an adjective, to be used in a sentence such as:
- It was a well-served station.
where it modifies the noun "station".
It's not a good sentence, but you should be able to see the point.
--
David
Eric Walker
> On 22/01/2010 18:57, j wrote:
>
>> Hyphenation has always thrown me for a loop. Which of the following is
>> correct:
>>
>> "These people have not always been well served by the system in the
>> past."
>>
>> or
>>
>> "These people have not always been well-served by the system in the
>> past."
>
> The first. "served" is a verb and "well" is an adverb which modifies
> the verb.
>
> "well-served" is an adjective, to be used in a sentence such as:
>
> - It was a well-served station.
>
> where it modifies the noun "station".
Disagree. "Be" is copulative, hence "well-served" is a predicate
adjective modifying the subject "people". Strip it to its basics:
People are well[-]served by it.
Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has been
high-strung all his life?" For that matter, would one write "These
people have been ill served by the system in the past"?
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
http://owlcroft.com/english/
Peter Moylan
> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has been
> high-strung all his life?"
Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
> For that matter, would one write "These
> people have been ill served by the system in the past"?
Yes. Well served, ill served, fairly served, unjustly served. poorly
served: a hyphen would be wrong in any of those.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Reinhold {Rey} Aman
>
> Eric Walker wrote:
>
>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?"
>> Or "He has been high-strung all his life?"
>
> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
>
are different animals.
Your "He has been highly strung all his life." is absurd.
"He has been *high-strung* [with obligatory hyphen!] all his life." is
perfect English (except in hyphenophobic Australia).
[...]
--
~~~ Reinhold {Rey} Aman ~~~
Eric Walker
> On 23/01/10 12:21, Eric Walker wrote:
>
>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has
>> been high-strung all his life?"
>
> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
Frankly, I don't believe it. I will not accept that anyone would ever
write "He has been highly strung all his life." That is farcical.
>> For that matter, would one write "These people have been ill served by
>> the system in the past"?
>
> Yes. Well served, ill served, fairly served, unjustly served. poorly
> served: a hyphen would be wrong in any of those.
I see we must simply agree to disagree. As I said before, those are all
predicate adjectives, and hence in need of hyphenation.
Nick
> On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:34:24 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
>> On 23/01/10 12:21, Eric Walker wrote:
>>
>>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has
>>> been high-strung all his life?"
>>
>> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
>
> Frankly, I don't believe it. I will not accept that anyone would ever
> write "He has been highly strung all his life." That is farcical.
I think I would. If only because I have no recollection of ever
encountering "high strung" in my life. OTOH, "highly strung" seems
entirely normal to me (meaning nervous, prone to startle at sudden
noises, worrisome etc).
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
James Hogg
> Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> writes:
>
>> On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:34:24 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>
>>> On 23/01/10 12:21, Eric Walker wrote:
>>>
>>>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He
>>>> has been high-strung all his life?"
>>> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
>> Frankly, I don't believe it. I will not accept that anyone would
>> ever write "He has been highly strung all his life." That is
>> farcical.
>
> I think I would. If only because I have no recollection of ever
> encountering "high strung" in my life. OTOH, "highly strung" seems
> entirely normal to me (meaning nervous, prone to startle at sudden
> noises, worrisome etc).
Since "highly strung" is so perfectly acceptable to me and many others
(the OED, for instance, defines "nervous" as "excitable, highly strung,
easily agitated, anxious, timid"), I wonder why some people object to
it. Or are they making some subtle distinction between "highly
strung" and "high-strung"?
--
James
Peter Moylan
Interesting. That last sounds foreign to me. I now see, on looking up a
couple of on-line dictionaries, that "highly strung" is marked as being BrE.
In my mind, changing "highly-strung" to "high-strung" (for the sake of
argument, I'm ignoring the hyphenation issue) is just as glaring an
error as changing "well-hung" to "good-hung".
As it happens, I do agree with using a hyphen when using such a phrase
as an attributive adjective. Where I disagree with you and Eric is on
the question of whether an adjective is the right thing to use in that
sentence. As I read it, "has been strung" is the verb, and "highly" - or
"high", if you must - is the adverb of degree.
From what I've seen in the dictionaries, though, it appears that this
reasoning does not work in AmE.
Jeffrey Turner
> On 23/01/10 12:21, Eric Walker wrote:
>
>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has been
>> high-strung all his life?"
>
> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
This American wouldn't use "highly strung." I would think "high-strung"
would be hyphenated.
>> For that matter, would one write "These
>> people have been ill served by the system in the past"?
>
> Yes. Well served, ill served, fairly served, unjustly served. poorly
> served: a hyphen would be wrong in any of those.
I'm with Mr. Moylan on this. The people may be "ill-served" but once
the ill service is attributed to "the system," it doesn't bear
hyphenation.
--Jeff
--
Is man one of God's blunders or
is God one of man's?
--Friedrich Nietzsche
Reinhold {Rey} Aman
Peter Moylan wrote:
>
> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>> Peter Moylan wrote:
>>> Eric Walker wrote:
>>>
>>>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?"
>>>> Or "He has been high-strung all his life?"
>>>
>>> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
>>>
>> OMG! You're kidding, Peter, right? "High-strung" and "highly
>> strung" are different animals.
>>
>> Your "He has been highly strung all his life." is absurd.
>>
>> "He has been *high-strung* [with obligatory hyphen!] all his
>> life." is perfect English (except in hyphenophobic Australia).
>> [...]
> Interesting. That last sounds foreign to me. I now see, on looking
> up a couple of on-line dictionaries, that "highly strung" is
> marked as being BrE.
>
Ah�! To sum up:
"He has been *high-strung* all his life." is perfect *American* English.
"He has been *highly strung* all his life." is -- based on your, Nick's,
and James's replies -- perfect *British* English and *Australian* English.
The AmE version sounds as foreign/absurd/weird to you non-Yanks as the
BrE and AusE version sounds to us (well, at least to me, speaking AmE).
And, BTW, in the USA, "high-strung" is almost exclusively applied to females.
==================
Nick wrote:
> ... I have no recollection of ever encountering "high strung" in
> my life.
>
The adjective "high-strung" is very common in AmE.
>
> OTOH, "highly strung" seems entirely normal to me (meaning
> nervous, prone to startle at sudden noises, worrisome etc).
==================
James Hogg wrote:
> Since "highly strung" is so perfectly acceptable to me and many
> others (the OED, for instance, defines "nervous" as "excitable,
> highly strung, easily agitated, anxious, timid"), I wonder why
> some people object to it.
>
Because to *American* ears, it sounds weird/wrong. Do highly(-)educated
native Americans such as Evan and Jerry agree with me?
>
> Or are they making some subtle distinction between "highly
> strung" and "high-strung"?
>
No distinction or difference in meaning. In AmE, "high-strung" also
means "tending to be extremely nervous and sensitive" and "having an
extremely nervous or sensitive temperament."
Nick
> [Combining three replies]
>
> Peter Moylan wrote:
>>
>> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>>> Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>> Eric Walker wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?"
>>>>> Or "He has been high-strung all his life?"
>>>>
>>>> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
>>>>
>>> OMG! You're kidding, Peter, right? "High-strung" and "highly
>>> strung" are different animals.
>>>
>>> Your "He has been highly strung all his life." is absurd.
>>>
>>> "He has been *high-strung* [with obligatory hyphen!] all his
>>> life." is perfect English (except in hyphenophobic Australia).
>>> [...]
>> Interesting. That last sounds foreign to me. I now see, on looking
>> up a couple of on-line dictionaries, that "highly strung" is
>> marked as being BrE.
>>
> Ahá! To sum up:
>
> "He has been *high-strung* all his life." is perfect *American* English.
>
> "He has been *highly strung* all his life." is -- based on your, Nick's,
> and James's replies -- perfect *British* English and *Australian* English.
>
> The AmE version sounds as foreign/absurd/weird to you non-Yanks as the
> BrE and AusE version sounds to us (well, at least to me, speaking AmE).
>
> And, BTW, in the USA, "high-strung" is almost exclusively applied to females.
It does indeed sound like we've discovered another perfect pondian
separation of variants.
Skitt
> Eric Walker wrote:
>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has
>> been high-strung all his life?"
>
> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
Main Entry: high–strung
Pronunciation: \ˈhī-ˈstrəŋ\
Function: adjective
Date: 1748
: having an extremely nervous or sensitive temperament
>
>> For that matter, would one write "These
>> people have been ill served by the system in the past"?
>
> Yes. Well served, ill served, fairly served, unjustly served. poorly
> served: a hyphen would be wrong in any of those.
Yup.
--
Skitt (AmE)
James Hogg
> Peter Moylan wrote:
>> Eric Walker wrote:
>
>>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He
>>> has been high-strung all his life?"
>>
>> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
>
>
> Main Entry: high–strung Pronunciation: \ˈhī-ˈstrəŋ\ Function:
> adjective Date: 1748
>
> : having an extremely nervous or sensitive temperament
I find "highly strung" in "The American Monthly Magazine" for 1837.
Evidently it hasn't always been considered "farcical" over there.
It's always interesting to see how people react to things that are not
dreamt of in their philosophy, how "I have never heard it" becomes "It
cannot possibly exist".
--
James
Jerry Friedman
> [Combining three replies]
>
>
>
> Peter Moylan wrote:
>
> > Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
> >> Peter Moylan wrote:
> >>> Eric Walker wrote:
>
> >>>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?"
> >>>> Or "He has been high-strung all his life?"
>
> >>> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
>
> >> OMG! You're kidding, Peter, right? "High-strung" and "highly
> >> strung" are different animals.
>
> >> Your "He has been highly strung all his life." is absurd.
>
> >> "He has been *high-strung* [with obligatory hyphen!] all his
> >> life." is perfect English (except in hyphenophobic Australia).
> >> [...]
> > Interesting. That last sounds foreign to me. I now see, on looking
> > up a couple of on-line dictionaries, that "highly strung" is
> > marked as being BrE.
>
>
> "He has been *high-strung* all his life." is perfect *American* English.
>
> "He has been *highly strung* all his life." is -- based on your, Nick's,
> and James's replies -- perfect *British* English and *Australian* English.
>
> The AmE version sounds as foreign/absurd/weird to you non-Yanks as the
> BrE and AusE version sounds to us (well, at least to me, speaking AmE).
>
> And, BTW, in the USA, "high-strung" is almost exclusively applied to females.
I think I first saw it when I was little and read books about horses.
Some breeds were said to be high-strung.
At Google Books:
"she's high-strung": 207
"he's high-strung": 167
> ==================
>
> James Hogg wrote:
> > Since "highly strung" is so perfectly acceptable to me and many
> > others (the OED, for instance, defines "nervous" as "excitable,
> > highly strung, easily agitated, anxious, timid"), I wonder why
> > some people object to it.
>
> Because to *American* ears, it sounds weird/wrong. Do highly(-)educated
> native Americans such as Evan and Jerry agree with me?
Oh, gosh, flattery. It sounds foreign to me, but not totally
unfamiliar. As Nick said, it seems like an excellent example of a
pondian difference.
"I'll string the violin high" seems closer to English than "I'll
string the violin highly."
On the original topic, I'm with those who hyphenate "well" followed by
a past participle when the combination is attributive but not when
it's predicative.
"The well-served dishes"
"Our clients are not well served."
--
Jerry Friedman
Eric Walker
[...]
> Since "highly strung" is so perfectly acceptable to me and many others
> (the OED, for instance, defines "nervous" as "excitable, highly strung,
> easily agitated, anxious, timid"), I wonder why some people object to
> it. Or are they making some subtle distinction between "highly strung"
> and "high-strung"?
Yes, a fundamental one. "Strung" is an adjective, but "high-
strung" (with or without hyphen) is not a case of an adverb modifying an
adjective (which would warrant "highly"): it is a compounding of meaning,
which is why the hyphen is mandatory. Compare hypothetical "highly
falutin'".
R H Draney
People can get highly-dudgeoned about this sort of thing....
("That's highly selassie of you"--Hawkeye Pierce, responding to the thanks of an
Ethiopian soldier)....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Reinhold {Rey} Aman
>
> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>> And, BTW, in the USA, "high-strung" is almost exclusively applied
>> to females.
> ...
> I think I first saw it when I was little and read books about horses.
> Some breeds were said to be high-strung.
>
I still believe that "high-strung" is usually applied to females; a
typical example is that bitch-from-hell, Supermodel Naomi Campbell.
In addition to certain horses, dogs, and females, femme-type homosexuals
also tend to be high-strung (based on my observations).
the Omrud
They haven't caught you yet?
--
David
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> writes:
>
>> On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:34:24 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>
>>> On 23/01/10 12:21, Eric Walker wrote:
>>>
>>>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has
>>>> been high-strung all his life?"
>>>
>>> Neither. Highly strung, without the hyphen.
>>
>> Frankly, I don't believe it. I will not accept that anyone would ever
>> write "He has been highly strung all his life." That is farcical.
>
> I think I would. If only because I have no recollection of ever
> encountering "high strung" in my life.
I have, but only in the USA, where it initially sounded very odd, but I
got used to it.
> OTOH, "highly strung" seems
> entirely normal to me (meaning nervous, prone to startle at sudden
> noises, worrisome etc).
To me also.
--
athel
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>
>> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
> [...]
>>> And, BTW, in the USA, "high-strung" is almost exclusively applied
>>> to females.
>> ...
>> I think I first saw it when I was little and read books about
>> horses. Some breeds were said to be high-strung.
>>
> True. Also, some breeds of dogs are known to be high-strung.
>
> I still believe that "high-strung" is usually applied to females; a
> typical example is that bitch-from-hell, Supermodel Naomi Campbell.
I don't see a big difference. "High-strung actor" gets 54 hits,
"High-strung actress" gets 58. For "waiter" and "waitress", it's 12
and 15. In Google Books, looking for "[s]he's high-strung" and "[s]he
is [very|so] high-strung" I see roughly equal hits for both sexes in
all variants.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The purpose of writing is to inflate
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning,
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |and inhibit clarity. With a little
|practice, writing can be an
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |intimidating and impenetrable fog!
(650)857-7572 | Calvin
Eric Walker
[...]
I will believe someone says or writes "highly strung" on the day that
that person swears on a stack of holy books of their choice that they
would say that a coloratura soprano has a highly pitched voice.
Jeez.
Reinhold {Rey} Aman
>
> Reinhold {Rey} Aman writes:
>> Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>> [...]
>>>> And, BTW, in the USA, "high-strung" is almost exclusively
>>>> applied to females.
>>> ...
>>> I think I first saw it when I was little and read books
>>> about horses. Some breeds were said to be high-strung.
>>>
>> True. Also, some breeds of dogs are known to be high-strung.
>>
>> I still believe that "high-strung" is usually applied to females; a
>> typical example is that bitch-from-hell, Supermodel Naomi Campbell.
>
> I don't see a big difference. "High-strung actor" gets 54 hits,
> "High-strung actress" gets 58.
That's a weak counter-argument, Evan. Keep in mind that nowadays
"actor" is not a reliable indicator of sex. How many of those 54
high-strung "actors" are in fact *actresses*, i.e., females? Ten?
Twenty? Fifty? Until we know the sex of those 54 "actors," 54 vs. 58
is as meaningless as listing these four Google hits, because we don't
know the sex of the individuals of these groups:
"High-strung children" = 8,440
"High-strung kids" = 8,030
"High-strung youngsters" = 140
"High-strung teenagers" = 526
Raw Google hits to support my claim that "high-strung" is usually
applied to females:
"High-strung men" = 12,500
"High-strung women" = 785,000 <--- ! No typo.
"High-strung man" = 32,700
"High-strung woman" = 72,700 <---
"High-strung male" = 935
"High-strung female" = 6,740 <---
"High-strung gentleman" = 146
"High-strung lady" = 5,540 <---
"High-strung gentlemen" = 67
"High-strung ladies" = 613 <---
"High-strung boy" = 11,000
"High-strung girl" = 32,300 <---
James Hogg
> On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:28:13 +0100, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> On 2010-01-23 12:41:34 +0100, Nick <3-no...@temporary-address.org.uk>
>> said:
>>
>>> OTOH, "highly strung" seems
>>> entirely normal to me (meaning nervous, prone to startle at sudden
>>> noises, worrisome etc).
>> To me also.
>
> I will believe someone says or writes "highly strung" on the day that
> that person swears on a stack of holy books of their choice that they
> would say that a coloratura soprano has a highly pitched voice.
I presume you have seen my quotations of "highly strung" from the OED
and didn't believe them.
Let's turn to "highly pitched" instead. Does it have to be a coloratura
soprano, or will a reference to some other voice do?
Jerome Cardan: "A Biographical Study", 1898:
"My habit is to speak in a highly-pitched voice."
"Punch", 1907:
"saying something in a highly-pitched voice, thin in tone but thick in
brogue."
"Indiana Telephone News", 1929:
"Our engineers have demonstrated that a low steady voice carries farther
and is
more powerful against conflicting sounds than a highly pitched voice."
George Manville Fenn, "Burr Junior", 2008:
"I listened, and Burr major was speaking sharply in a highly-pitched
voice, that
was all squeak, and then it descended suddenly into a gruff bass."
> Jeez.
--
James
Nick
> On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:28:13 +0100, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> On 2010-01-23 12:41:34 +0100, Nick <3-no...@temporary-address.org.uk>
>> said:
>>
>>> OTOH, "highly strung" seems
>>> entirely normal to me (meaning nervous, prone to startle at sudden
>>> noises, worrisome etc).
>>
>> To me also.
>
> I will believe someone says or writes "highly strung" on the day that
> that person swears on a stack of holy books of their choice that they
> would say that a coloratura soprano has a highly pitched voice.
>
> Jeez.
That's utterly bonkers. I do the former, have never heard "high strung"
but will not do the latter because I wouldn't.
If you want to spend the rest of your life believing me to be making
things up, go ahead and do it! You'd be wrong, though.
It's an ideomatic phrase, it just happens to be one with two variations.
After all, no-one is actually being strung here.
HVS
> On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:28:13 +0100, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> On 2010-01-23 12:41:34 +0100, Nick
>> <3-no...@temporary-address.org.uk> said:
>>
>>> OTOH, "highly strung" seems
>>> entirely normal to me (meaning nervous, prone to startle at
>>> sudden noises, worrisome etc).
>>
>> To me also.
>
> I will believe someone says or writes "highly strung" on the day
> that that person swears on a stack of holy books of their choice
> that they would say that a coloratura soprano has a highly
> pitched voice.
That argument relies on a presumption that the usage of native
English speakers remains consistent between words and phrases, and
last time I checked that wasn't a very sound presumption.
(I'm on the list of "both versions sound normal".)
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
James Hogg
And a roof can be either "high-pitched" or "highly pitched".
--
James
HVS
A bing search turns up a couple of hundred hits for "highly-pitched
voice"; at first glance, they don't look like dialect or
illiterate uses.
Reinhold {Rey} Aman
[...]
> And a roof can be either "high-pitched" or "highly pitched".
>
"Buy or die!" <--- high pitch
http://aman.members.sonic.net/pricelist_order.html
James Hogg
> James Hogg wrote:
> [...]
>> And a roof can be either "high-pitched" or "highly pitched".
>>
> Like my books; but still, few buy them.
>
> "Buy or die!" <--- high pitch
>
> http://aman.members.sonic.net/pricelist_order.html
Shouldn't that read "Ordure Form"?
--
James
Reinhold {Rey} Aman
>
> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>> James Hogg wrote:
>> [...]
>>> And a roof can be either "high-pitched" or "highly pitched".
>>>
>>
>> "Buy or die!" <--- high pitch
>>
>> http://aman.members.sonic.net/pricelist_order.html
>
> Shouldn't that read "Ordure Form"?
>
years for the amusement of my clients in 87 countries.
--
~~~ Reinhold {Rey} Aman ~~~
Non olet
James Hogg
> James Hogg wrote:
>> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>>> James Hogg wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>> And a roof can be either "high-pitched" or "highly pitched".
>>>>
>>> Like my books; but still, few buy them {nowadays}.
>>>
>>> "Buy or die!" <--- high pitch
>>>
>>> http://aman.members.sonic.net/pricelist_order.html
>> Shouldn't that read "Ordure Form"?
>>
> Your quip comes about 20 years too late. I used "Ordure Form" for many
> years for the amusement of my clients in 87 countries.
That shows how long it is since I ordered anything from you.
--
James
Eric Walker
> I presume you have seen my quotations of "highly strung" from the OED
> and didn't believe them. . . .
It is scarcely to be doubted that people, often eminent language users,
make mistakes, often terrible mistakes; most usage manuals deliberately
take their examples of poor usage from nominally exalted sources exactly
to demonstrate that point. Nor does anyone say that the citations in the
OED all represent what is, or even what was then, considered good usage--
just uses that occurred.
I repeat: swear to me on a stack of holy books that you yourself would be
comfortable referring to someone as having a "highly pitched" voice and
then we can continue.
James Hogg
I think I myself would say "high-pitched", but I would not be surprised
or offended to hear someone else use "highly pitched".
Conversely, I think I would more likely say "highly strung" than
"high-strung".
In any case, I would not deduce from my own particular usage that people
who choose another variant are wrong. In other words, I do not erect my
variety of English into the only correct and acceptable standard,
dismissing all else as farcical.
--
James
Eric Walker
[...]
> A bing search turns up a couple of hundred hits for "highly-pitched
> voice"; at first glance, they don't look like dialect or illiterate
> uses.
Well, Google shows that as between "high-pitched" and "highly pitched",
the latter is less than 1% of occurrences. In fact, when one does the
search for "highly pitched", Google queries 'Did you mean: "high
pitched"?'
And the occurrences include such as "Fluid Dynamics of Highly Pitched and
Yawed Jets in Crossflow" and "Saddle type highly pitched form fitting
grip", in which "pitch" has a quite different meaning.
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
--"The Boxer", Simon & Garfunkel
Eric Walker
[...]
> I think I myself would say "high-pitched", but I would not be surprised
> or offended to hear someone else use "highly pitched".
>
> Conversely, I think I would more likely say "highly strung" than
> "high-strung".
>
> In any case, I would not deduce from my own particular usage that people
> who choose another variant are wrong. In other words, I do not erect my
> variety of English into the only correct and acceptable standard,
> dismissing all else as farcical.
From what _would_ you deduce what usage is general acceptation and what
is not? As noted elsethread [here meaning elsewhere on this thread], not
only is "highly strung" less than 1% of the total of it and "high-
strung", a search for it actually prompts a query from Google as to
whether you didn't really mean "high-strung". I'd call that pretty
general acceptance.
Besides which, it's not idiom: it's a question of whether "high" can
reasonably be interpreted as an adverb. In this case, it cannot.
"Pitched" refers to the frequency range in which the sound occurs, not to
the act of casting the sound. "He pitched his voice high so as to be
heard over the background din." It is impossible to construe that as
wanting "highly"--since "high" is not modifying "pitched" but "voice";
the sentence is a little different, but it is the same principle. A voice
pitched high is a high-pitched voice.
It's the same reason we don't say "He found the rock face daunting, but
by reaching highly he was able to grasp the next hold."
There are I don't know how many more easy parallels: high-stepping, high-
necked, high-flying, high-minded, high-powered, high-sounding, high-
sticking (from hockey), high-toned, high-wrought, the aforementioned high-
falutin', and possibly more. With all of those, as well as high-pitched
and high-strung, it is--I repeat--farcical to suggest using "highly".
James Hogg
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:50:25 +0100, James Hogg wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> I think I myself would say "high-pitched", but I would not be
>> surprised or offended to hear someone else use "highly pitched".
>>
>> Conversely, I think I would more likely say "highly strung" than
>> "high-strung".
>>
>> In any case, I would not deduce from my own particular usage that
>> people who choose another variant are wrong. In other words, I do
>> not erect my variety of English into the only correct and
>> acceptable standard, dismissing all else as farcical.
>
> From what _would_ you deduce what usage is general acceptation and
> what is not? As noted elsethread [here meaning elsewhere on this
> thread], not only is "highly strung" less than 1% of the total of it
> and "high- strung", a search for it actually prompts a query from
> Google as to whether you didn't really mean "high-strung". I'd call
> that pretty general acceptance.
In American English.
> Besides which, it's not idiom: it's a question of whether "high" can
> reasonably be interpreted as an adverb. In this case, it cannot.
> "Pitched" refers to the frequency range in which the sound occurs,
> not to the act of casting the sound. "He pitched his voice high so
> as to be heard over the background din." It is impossible to
> construe that as wanting "highly"--since "high" is not modifying
> "pitched" but "voice"; the sentence is a little different, but it is
> the same principle. A voice pitched high is a high-pitched voice.
>
> It's the same reason we don't say "He found the rock face daunting,
> but by reaching highly he was able to grasp the next hold."
>
> There are I don't know how many more easy parallels: high-stepping,
> high- necked, high-flying, high-minded, high-powered, high-sounding,
> high- sticking (from hockey), high-toned, high-wrought, the
> aforementioned high- falutin', and possibly more. With all of those,
> as well as high-pitched and high-strung, it is--I repeat--farcical to
> suggest using "highly".
The editors of the OED who used "highly strung" in their definitions of
the words "nervous, nervy, hyper" evidently did not find it farcical.
--
James
Chuck Riggs
Before Rey's survey, I knew that "high-strung" is applied to women far
and away more often than it is to men, but it is nice to have some
Internet data to back up my experience with the language.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs,
An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE
Chuck Riggs
wrote:
<snip>
>I think I myself would say "high-pitched", but I would not be surprised
>or offended to hear someone else use "highly pitched".
I believe the usual expression is "high-pitched".
>Conversely, I think I would more likely say "highly strung" than
>"high-strung".
You're beating a dead horse. See Rey Aman's survey in today's AUE
traffic.
Chuck Riggs
wrote:
Instead of another gratuitous crack, I was hoping for an admission of
your possible error regarding the popularity and usage of
"high-strung" vs "highly strung". Oh well.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
>Eric Walker wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:11:21 +0100, James Hogg wrote:
>>
>>> I presume you have seen my quotations of "highly strung" from the OED
>>> and didn't believe them. . . .
>>
>> It is scarcely to be doubted that people, often eminent language users,
>> make mistakes, often terrible mistakes; most usage manuals deliberately
>> take their examples of poor usage from nominally exalted sources exactly
>> to demonstrate that point. Nor does anyone say that the citations in the
>> OED all represent what is, or even what was then, considered good usage--
>> just uses that occurred.
>>
>> I repeat: swear to me on a stack of holy books that you yourself would be
>> comfortable referring to someone as having a "highly pitched" voice and
>> then we can continue.
>
>I think I myself would say "high-pitched", but I would not be surprised
>or offended to hear someone else use "highly pitched".
>
Ditto.
>Conversely, I think I would more likely say "highly strung" than
>"high-strung".
>
Ditto. To me "highly strung" was the most common form when I was growing
up in southeastern England.
>In any case, I would not deduce from my own particular usage that people
>who choose another variant are wrong. In other words, I do not erect my
>variety of English into the only correct and acceptable standard,
>dismissing all else as farcical.
Another ditto.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Wood Avens
wrote:
>Eric Walker wrote:
>> There are I don't know how many more easy parallels: high-stepping,
>> high- necked, high-flying, high-minded, high-powered, high-sounding,
>> high- sticking (from hockey), high-toned, high-wrought, the
>> aforementioned high- falutin', and possibly more. With all of those,
>> as well as high-pitched and high-strung, it is--I repeat--farcical to
>> suggest using "highly".
>
>The editors of the OED who used "highly strung" in their definitions of
>the words "nervous, nervy, hyper" evidently did not find it farcical.
Just so. From the OED's definion of STRUNG:
" 4. In the sense of STRING v. 3. a. Of nerves, feelings, etc.: In
a state of tension. Also strung-up, and (N. Amer. slang) strung out
(overlaps with sense c below). b. With prefixed adv., finely-,
highly-strung: said of persons with reference to their nervous
organization or condition."
I've known "highly-strung" most of my life. I speak BrE, and I think
of "high-strung" as AmE. I'm surprised it's arousing such a, hm,
highly-strung reaction.
--
Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @
LFS
What James and Peter said. Before reading this thread, I had never
before heard "high-strung", only "highly-strung", and it had never
struck me as anomalous. I wondered if it was a pondian difference but I
read a great many US authors and watch quite a bit of US TV and have
never noticed it. (For MM fans: it's possible that Don used the
expression in discussing Betty with her psychiatrist but I can't check
the DVD at the moment. Series 3 this week!)
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
James Hogg
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:15:42 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>>> James Hogg wrote:
>>>> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>>>>> James Hogg wrote:
>>>>> [...]
>>>>>> And a roof can be either "high-pitched" or "highly pitched".
>>>>>>
>>>>> Like my books; but still, few buy them {nowadays}.
>>>>>
>>>>> "Buy or die!" <--- high pitch
>>>>>
>>>>> http://aman.members.sonic.net/pricelist_order.html
>>>> Shouldn't that read "Ordure Form"?
>>>>
>>> Your quip comes about 20 years too late. I used "Ordure Form" for many
>>> years for the amusement of my clients in 87 countries.
>> That shows how long it is since I ordered anything from you.
>
> Instead of another gratuitous crack, I was hoping for an admission of
> your possible error regarding the popularity and usage of
> "high-strung" vs "highly strung". Oh well.
As you can see from other responses, "highly strung" is the most popular
form in British English.
And Rey drew the correct conclusion when he wrote:
"He has been *highly strung* all his life." is -- based on your, Nick's,
and James's replies -- perfect *British* English and *Australian* English.
As for the gratuitous crack, I'm not sure what you mean. Rey used to
call his order forms "ordure forms" back in the days when I last saw one
of them.
--
James
Peter Moylan
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:11:21 +0100, James Hogg wrote:
>
>> I presume you have seen my quotations of "highly strung" from the OED
>> and didn't believe them. . . .
>
> It is scarcely to be doubted that people, often eminent language users,
> make mistakes, often terrible mistakes; most usage manuals deliberately
> take their examples of poor usage from nominally exalted sources exactly
> to demonstrate that point. Nor does anyone say that the citations in the
> OED all represent what is, or even what was then, considered good usage--
> just uses that occurred.
In this case the "mistake" is using an adverb to modify a verb, where
you would prefer using an adjective to modify the verb.
I can't help wondering who made the mistake.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
John Dunlop
> As noted elsethread [here meaning elsewhere on this thread],
> not only is "highly strung" less than 1% of the total of it and "high-
> strung", a search for it actually prompts a query from Google as to
> whether you didn't really mean "high-strung".
Here's what Google gives me for "high-strung" and "highly strung":
485 000 for "high-strung"
205 000 for "highly strung"
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22high-strung%22
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22highly+strung%22
The Corpus of Contemporary American English (400 million words) has 201
occurrences of "high-strung" (32 without the hyphen) and 8 of "highly
strung".
http://www.americancorpus.org/
The British National Corpus (100 million words) has 37 occurrences of
"highly strung" but none of "high-strung", with or without the hyphen.
http://bnc.bl.uk/saraWeb.php?qy=high-strung
--
John
Peter Moylan
> I repeat: swear to me on a stack of holy books that you yourself would be
> comfortable referring to someone as having a "highly pitched" voice and
> then we can continue.
I can't do that, because I don't have any books that I consider to be
holy. Would you accept an affirmation?
I hereby affirm that I find the phrase "highly pitched voice" to be
perfectly normal usage; and, furthermore, that I find "high-pitched
voice" to be a grossly ungrammatical attempt to use "high" where we
would normally expect an adverb.
Peter Moylan
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:50:25 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> I think I myself would say "high-pitched", but I would not be surprised
>> or offended to hear someone else use "highly pitched".
>
> I believe the usual
AmE
> expression is "high-pitched".
Peter Moylan
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:25:52 +0000, HVS wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> A bing search turns up a couple of hundred hits for "highly-pitched
>> voice"; at first glance, they don't look like dialect or illiterate
>> uses.
>
> Well, Google shows that as between "high-pitched" and "highly pitched",
> the latter is less than 1% of occurrences. In fact, when one does the
> search for "highly pitched", Google queries 'Did you mean: "high
> pitched"?'
You're using an American Google server, I presume? When I do the search
from here, "highly pitched" slightly outnumbers "high-pitched".
James Hogg
> Eric Walker wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:25:52 +0000, HVS wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> A bing search turns up a couple of hundred hits for "highly-pitched
>>> voice"; at first glance, they don't look like dialect or illiterate
>>> uses.
>> Well, Google shows that as between "high-pitched" and "highly pitched",
>> the latter is less than 1% of occurrences. In fact, when one does the
>> search for "highly pitched", Google queries 'Did you mean: "high
>> pitched"?'
>
> You're using an American Google server, I presume? When I do the search
> from here, "highly pitched" slightly outnumbers "high-pitched".
Have you tried a Google comparison of the frequency of these expressions:
"between him and me"
"between he and I"
--
James
Peter Moylan
"between he and I" contains an explanation for why it is wrong.
the Omrud
May I raise a small cheer for Portillo? Several times, when talking
about his family visits to his grandparents' home in Kircaldy, he used
phrases such as "It was always exciting for my brothers and me", and
"The house seemed huge to my brothers and me".
--
David
HVS
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:25:52 +0000, HVS wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> A bing search turns up a couple of hundred hits for
>> "highly-pitched voice"; at first glance, they don't look like
>> dialect or illiterate uses.
>
> Well, Google shows that as between "high-pitched" and "highly
> pitched", the latter is less than 1% of occurrences. In fact,
> when one does the search for "highly pitched", Google queries
> 'Did you mean: "high pitched"?'
Well, you're changing goalposts, of course.
The part you snipped was your challenge to the very idea that anyone
would *ever* write "highly-pitched voice"; it implied the absolute
non-existence of such a usage in idiomatic speech, rather than
rarity.
Google returns a couple of hundred hits for "highly-pitched voice",
and now your point appears to be that it can be considered very rare
-- a point no one is disputing.
And my initial point stands: your use of the example of "highly-
pitched voice" to dismiss the usage of "highly-strung" relies on the
a presumption of consistency in English usage that simply doesn't
stand up to examination.
Nick
This really is complete and utter bilge you know. If you won't swear in
a similar way that that you'd never describe someone as "light fingered"
I won't believe that anything can be "lightly emphasised". What?
I really can't work out if you are running a monumental troll here, or what.
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
James Hogg
> I really can't work out if you are running a monumental troll here, or what.
If it were monumental it would be written in a more lapidary style.
--
James
Mike Lyle
"Wood Avens" <wood...@askjennison.com> wrote in message
news:553rl59kr7sobfg7c...@4ax.com...
farcical words for it, and canter, loftily-quadrupeded, into the sunset,
sadly shaking his head at the preposterously-vagaried character of his
fellow creatures.
Perhaps, like whoever it was Noel Coward mentioned as thus disqualified,
he doesn't do it.
--
Mike.
Eric Walker
[...]
> Eric's unduly highly-horsed on the subject. He'll just have to take our
> farcical words for it, and canter, loftily-quadrupeded, into the sunset,
> sadly shaking his head at the preposterously-vagaried character of his
> fellow creatures.
Let me repeat:
high-falutin'
high-flying
high-minded
high-necked
high-pitched
high-powered
high-sounding
high-stepping
high-sticking
high-strung
high-toned
high-wrought
For which of those do you imagine "highly" can replace "high-"? All?
If not all, then how and why would certain magically exempt ones be thus
magical?
If any speakers to sound silly by substituting "highly" in _any_ of those
constructions, that is their privilege. But it remains silly.
Eric Walker
[...]
> The editors of the OED who used "highly strung" in their definitions of
> the words "nervous, nervy, hyper" evidently did not find it farcical.
My print copy of the OED shows no such uses. Are you perhaps referring
to some usage citations? I didn't go through all of them, but didn't see
the usage even there.
HVS
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:51:46 +0000, Mike Lyle wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> Eric's unduly highly-horsed on the subject. He'll just have to
>> take our farcical words for it, and canter,
>> loftily-quadrupeded, into the sunset, sadly shaking his head at
>> the preposterously-vagaried character of his fellow creatures.
>
> Let me repeat:
>
> high-falutin'
> high-flying
> high-minded
> high-necked
> high-pitched
> high-powered
> high-sounding
> high-stepping
> high-sticking
> high-strung
> high-toned
> high-wrought
>
> For which of those do you imagine "highly" can replace "high-"?
At the very least:
highly-pitched
highly-powered
highly-strung
highly-wrought
> All? If not all, then how and why would certain magically
> exempt ones be thus magical?
That remains an argument that's rooted in the proposition that
consistency is a characteristic of idiomatic English usage.
Take a term like "a highly-sexed person". Do you sincerely believe
that, on your model, non-silly English usage demands the phrase "a
high-sexed person"?
If not, why not?
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
HVS
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:57:30 +0100, James Hogg wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> The editors of the OED who used "highly strung" in their
>> definitions of the words "nervous, nervy, hyper" evidently did
>> not find it farcical.
>
> My print copy of the OED shows no such uses. Are you perhaps
> referring to some usage citations? I didn't go through all of
> them, but didn't see the usage even there.
>
It's in the current definitions, not the citations. An example,
under "nervous" and "nervy":
(quotes)>
[nervous]
9. a. Of a person or temperament: excitable, highly strung, easily
agitated, anxious, timid; hypersensitive; worried, anxious (about);
afraid, apprehensive (of).
[nervy]
II. Senses relating to nervousness.
4. Excitable, highly strung, easily agitated; worried, anxious; =
NERVOUS adj. 9.
(/quote)
HVS
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:57:30 +0100, James Hogg wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> The editors of the OED who used "highly strung" in their
>> definitions of the words "nervous, nervy, hyper" evidently did
>> not find it farcical.
>
> My print copy of the OED shows no such uses.
Look in the print edition under "strung", definition 4.b.
Eric Walker
> Eric Walker:
>
>> As noted elsethread [here meaning elsewhere on this thread], not only
>> is "highly strung" less than 1% of the total of it and "high-strung",
>> a search for it actually prompts a query from Google as to whether you
>> didn't really mean "high-strung".
>
> Here's what Google gives me for "high-strung" and "highly strung":
>
> 485 000 for "high-strung"
> 205 000 for "highly strung"
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22high-strung%22
> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22highly+strung%22
I see what happened: I actually was using the phrase "high-pitched" (and
its variants), as logged farther below in this post. (That phrase had
also arisen in the discussions earlier.) Sorry; but read on.
With any of this sort, the use of quotation marks seems to make a huge
difference:
high-strung : 5,300,000
"high-strung" : 500,000
high-pitched : 2,830,000
"high-pitched" : 1,930,000
Yet, just looking at the tops of the results, there seems scarcely any
difference in what is returned. Ah, Google. (It appears to me as if for
hyphenated terms Google treats the hyphens as blank spaces but acts as if
the hyphenated words were in quotation marks as a phrase; but who can be
sure?)
Of course, Google's performances are always mysterious: searching for
"highly strung" (with marks) gives me 247,000; but when I add the term
-Orianthi (apparently some person or group who recorded a song using the
phrase), which should clearly _reduce_ the hit count, I get 1,020,000
hits. Go figure . . . .
Note also that while one cannot comb through hundreds of thousands of
uses, the search for "highly strung" (which must use quotation marks)
turns up, at least near the top of the list, numerous references to
guitars, where the participle has a different sense than in the phrase
"high-strung".
Here are the full results with "pitched":
high-pitched : 2,830,000
"high-pitched" : 1,930,000
"high pitched" : 1,930,000
"highly pitched" : 27,000
And with "strung":
high-strung : 5,300,000
"high-strung" : 500,000
"high strung" : 504,000
"highly strung" : 247,000
So, while it seems much depends on what the quotation marks mean to
Google, it also seems that at very worst the adjectival compound exceeds
the adverbial combination by 2:1, but with a strong suggestion that it in
fact actually exceeds it by more than 21:1.
Eric Walker
I'm glad you asked, because therein lies the key to this whole rather
simple business, which has nothing to do with any idiosyncratic
inconsistency but rather with elementary grammar.
There is no absolute model for "Xly Yed" versus "X-Yed". What it comes
down to is whether X has a true adverbial function or is part of a
compound adjective. We can try a rule-of-thumb approach:
His voice is high-pitched.
He has a voice that is pitched high.
His voice is highly pitched.
He has a voice that is pitched highly.
One of those recastings makes perfect sense, the other no sense.
His personality is high-strung.
He has a personality that is strung high.
His personality is highly pitched.
He has a personality that is strung highly.
("Strung high" is awkward, but carries the sense.)
His car's engine is high-powered.
He has a car engine that is high in power.
His car's engine is highly powered.
He has a car engine that is powered highly.
(In fact, the natural use is the even clearer "He has a car engine that
is high-power.")
And so on and so forth.
But for "He has a personality that is highly sexed", we cannot back-form
to an alternative "He has a high-sexed personality", and thus likewise
cannot form "He is high-sexed".
The crux in these cases is the extent to which "high" is perceived as
simply a generic intensifier, so as to be an adverb (as in "highly
sexed"), or whether it refers literally or--more commonly--metaphorically
to a region or zone, in which case it is a part of the descriptive (that
is, adjectival) function. Another rule-of-thumb test might be whether
the "high" can be replaced one-up by "very", if not felicitously at least
with sense:
He is a very sexed person.
She has a very pitched voice.
In the second, it is clear not only that the sentence is a nonsense, but
that the reason it is a nonsense is that bare "pitched" is not a
reasonable qualifier of the noun "voice", whereas "sexed" is, however
clumsily, a plausible qualifier of "person".
(As a further example, note that a roof can indeed be described as simply
"pitched", so that "a highly pitched roof" makes perfect sense, whereas a
"highly pitched voice" does not.)
No one, one hopes, would refer to a largely scaled map: it is large-
scaled. A list of compound adjectives wherein the last element is a
participle would be huge, and in almost all cases--I would have omitted
the "almost" till this thread--it is obvious to all what the compounds
are and why there is no adverb in them. Why these few particular
examples seem to present such difficulties remains a mystery to me.
Eric Walker
[...]
> Look in the print edition under "strung", definition 4.b.
Perhaps, then, that is simply British idiom (and still silly). I just
posted an extensive answer to your previously posted question "Do you
sincerely believe that, on your model, non-silly English usage demands
the phrase 'a high-sexed person'? If not, why not?" I hope and believe
that it makes definitively clear what the issues here are.
(It's date-stamped 00:10:54 UTC, for reference.)
Eric Walker
[...]
> This really is complete and utter bilge you know. If you won't swear in
> a similar way that that you'd never describe someone as "light fingered"
> I won't believe that anything can be "lightly emphasised". What?
>
> I really can't work out if you are running a monumental troll here, or
> what.
I don't normally do this, but to avoid just referring to another post, I
will repeat most of it here. Perhaps you will come to see what view is
bilge and what isn't; or perhaps not--I can only lead the horse to the
water.
-----------------
There is no absolute model for "Xly Yed" versus "X-Yed". What it comes
down to is whether X has a true adverbial function or is part of a
compound adjective. We can try a rule-of-thumb approach:
His voice is high-pitched.
He has a voice that is pitched high.
His voice is highly pitched.
He has a voice that is pitched highly.
One of those recastings makes perfect sense, the other no sense.
His personality is high-strung.
He has a personality that is strung high.
His personality is highly strung.
He has a personality that is strung highly.
("Strung high" is awkward, but carries the sense.)
His car's engine is high-powered.
He has a car engine that is high in power.
His car's engine is highly powered.
He has a car engine that is powered highly.
(In fact, the natural use is the even clearer "He has a car engine that
is high-power.")
And so on and so forth.
But for "He has a personality that is highly sexed", we cannot back-form
to an alternative "He has a high-sexed personality", and thus likewise
cannot form "He is high-sexed". [The form "highly sexed" was put forth
in the post to which this was a response.]
The crux in these cases is the extent to which "high" is perceived as
simply a generic intensifier, so as to be an adverb (as in "highly
sexed"), or whether it refers literally or--more commonly--metaphorically
to a region or zone, in which case it is a part of the descriptive (that
is, adjectival) function. Another rule-of-thumb test might be whether
the "high" can be replaced one-up by "very", if not felicitously at least
with sense:
He is a very sexed person.
She has a very pitched voice.
In the second, it is clear not only that the sentence is a nonsense, but
that the reason it is a nonsense is that bare "pitched" is not a
reasonable qualifier of the noun "voice", whereas "sexed" is, however
clumsily, a plausible qualifier of "person".
(As a further example, note that a roof can indeed be described as simply
"pitched", so that "a highly pitched roof" makes perfect sense, whereas a
"highly pitched voice" does not.)
No one, one hopes, would refer to a largely scaled map: it is large-
scaled. A list of compound adjectives wherein the last element is a
participle would be huge, and in almost all cases--I would have omitted
the "almost" till this thread--it is obvious to all what the compounds
are and why there is no adverb in them.
The apparently common (in the isles) British forms using "highly' must, I
suppose, be written off as a silly example of hyper-correction that
became embalmed as idiom (which, by definition, ignores grammar and,
usually, common sense.)
-----------------
And, to answer more directly, "emphasized" is a perfectly normal
adjective by itself, so that "lightly emphasized is a reasonable form;
but "fingered" is not--saving some bizarrely contorted artificial
context--a natural and normal adjective by itself, so that in "light-
fingered" a compounded adjective is needed.
No, this is not a monumental troll: it is a monumental--indeed,
Sisyphean--effort to persuade people that both grammar and basic common
sense have not yet utterly lost their applicability to English.
R H Draney
>
>[nervy]
>
>II. Senses relating to nervousness.
>
>4. Excitable, highly strung, easily agitated; worried, anxious; =
>NERVOUS adj. 9.
>
>(/quote)
For the record, "nervy" doesn't have that meaning here...it would be taken as a
synonym for "brash"....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Eric Walker
[...]
> Well, you're changing goalposts, of course.
>
> The part you snipped was your challenge to the very idea that anyone
> would *ever* write "highly-pitched voice"; it implied the absolute
> non-existence of such a usage in idiomatic speech, rather than rarity.
>
> Google returns a couple of hundred hits for "highly-pitched voice", and
> now your point appears to be that it can be considered very rare -- a
> point no one is disputing.
I have come round to the view, expressed in another post here, that in
the British Isles some nit's hyper-correction made at some unknowable
time somehow got embalmed as idiom, though--for once--the bad form seems
to be losing its hold.
> And my initial point stands: your use of the example of "highly-
> pitched voice" to dismiss the usage of "highly-strung" relies on the a
> presumption of consistency in English usage that simply doesn't stand up
> to examination.
As I posted elsethread, it has nothing to do with any "artificial"
consistency: it is sheer grammar and logic.
I would, though, point out that the usual rules for hyphenation do not
want one where the first part of the compound is visibly an adverb:
"highly pitched", not "highly-pitched". The difference is relevant to
the point here: hyphens help distinguish between adverb-adjective pairs
and compound adjectives:
. a yellow window envelope [where "window envelope" is a a type of
business envelope with a window, "window" thus being an adjective,
and the adverbial--because not hyphentated--"yellow" telling us what
color the envelope is, though not specifying the color of that
envelope]
. a yellow-window envelope [where the compound adjective tells us that
the reference is to an envelope, of unspecified color, with a yellow
window]
(The _Chicago_, in making this point, uses the perhaps even better
example of "a fast sailing ship" versus "a fast-sailing ship".)
When the adverb follows the usual English pattern of ending in -ly (or is
otherwise manifestly what it is, as with "much"), the hyphen is not
needed because we already know that the lead word is an adverb (though
there are always those pesky adjectives that end in -ly).
(I admit that I am often guilty of hyphenating after "much", as in "much-
wanted"; I need to be more careful.)
James Hogg
Another difference. I would say a "large-scale map". Google counts show
that my preference far outnumbers "large-scaled map".
The only OED hits are for things like large-scaled freshwater fishes or
snakes.
> A list of compound adjectives wherein the last element is a
> participle would be huge, and in almost all cases--I would have omitted
> the "almost" till this thread--it is obvious to all what the compounds
> are and why there is no adverb in them. Why these few particular
> examples seem to present such difficulties remains a mystery to me.
As you admitted yesterday, we tend to hear what we want to hear and
disregard the rest.
--
James
HVS
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:31:02 +0000, HVS wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> Look in the print edition under "strung", definition 4.b.
>
> Perhaps, then, that is simply British idiom (and still silly).
> I just posted an extensive answer to your previously posted
> question "Do you sincerely believe that, on your model,
> non-silly English usage demands the phrase 'a high-sexed
> person'? If not, why not?" I hope and believe that it makes
> definitively clear what the issues here are.
>
> (It's date-stamped 00:10:54 UTC, for reference.)
Your grammmatical explanation makes sense insofar as it explains
why you would argue against using the form "highly-strung".
I'm afraid it offers no support for your original contention -- the
point that was being challenged -- that "highly-strung" effectively
is not used in standard English.
To return to that point, a google books search for works published
between 1700 and 2000 turns up 3,430 hits for "high strung", and
2,130 for "highly strung".
On that measure, the latter does not appear to be at all unusual
(and no, I do not accept that all 2,130 cases were either
incompetently written or examples of silly usage).
James Hogg
Here are two interesting extracts from Google Books to illustrate the
perfectly natural variation between predicative "highly strung" and
attributive "high-strung":
Meet Mr. Hyphen and Put Him in His Place
By Edward Nelson Teall, 1937:
"Whether one chooses to write /high strung/, /high-strung/, or
/highstrung/, the two words constitute, in attributive position, a
single modifier equivalent to the syntactic form /highly strung/ but not
separated in the mind of speaker or writer, hearer or reader."
The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu
By Sax Rohmer, 1916:
"So wore on the night; and, when the ticking clock hollowly boomed the
hour of one, I almost leaped our of my chair, so highly strung were my
nerves, and so appallingly did the sudden clangor beat upon them. Smith,
like a man of stone, showed no sign. He was capable of so subduing his
constitutionally high-strung temperament, at times, that temporarily he
became immune from human dreads."
--
James
HVS
> HVS wrote:
I'm not strong on the terminology, but where does that place usages
like Conan Doyle's "I determined to say nothing about the former to
my wife, for she is a nervous, highly strung woman..."?
Isn't that a respectable and natural attributive use of "highly
strung"?
James Hogg
Yes.
--
James
Eric Walker
[...]
> Another difference. I would say a "large-scale map". Google counts show
> that my preference far outnumbers "large-scaled map".
Yes, the example was hastily chosen and not ideal. But the principle
remains: adjectives that require two parts to make sense are compounds of
individual adjectives, not a pairing of adverb-with-adjective.
Eric Walker
[...]
> I'm not strong on the terminology, but where does that place usages like
> Conan Doyle's "I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife,
> for she is a nervous, highly strung woman..."?
>
> Isn't that a respectable and natural attributive use of "highly strung"?
I have already conceded that somewhere along the line this peculiar usage
seems to have crept into idiomatic BrE. But frequency of occurrence of
an off form does not in itself legitimize that form, else "hand me them
tools" would have become standard centuries ago.
I repeat that the difference is fairly clearly shown by the difference
between "a highly pitched roof" and "a highly strung person": a pitched
roof is a comprehensible thing, but a strung person is not. When
"highly" means generically "very much", and is applied to an adjective
that can stand on its own two legs, all is well; but when "high" refers
to a metaphorical zone (and "high-pitched" is a metaphor derived from the
tension in an instrument string that is tautened to make a sound high in
pitch), and the adjective totters about when left on its own, then what
is wanted is the compound adjective with "high-" as a prefix.
James Hogg
> On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:56:48 +0100, James Hogg wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> Another difference. I would say a "large-scale map". Google counts
>> show that my preference far outnumbers "large-scaled map".
>
> Yes, the example was hastily chosen and not ideal. But the principle
> remains: adjectives that require two parts to make sense are
> compounds of individual adjectives, not a pairing of
> adverb-with-adjective.
What about "well-made"? Let's take the phrase "a well-made sword" and
examine it according to your principle.
It's an adjective. Here I agree.
It requires both parts to make sense. Here I agree. At least, I can't
think of any context where I would say "a made sword".
It's a compound of individual adjectives. Here I would have to disagree.
I think it's a pairing of adverb-with-adjective.
--
James
James Hogg
> On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:38:23 +0000, HVS wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> I'm not strong on the terminology, but where does that place usages like
>> Conan Doyle's "I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife,
>> for she is a nervous, highly strung woman..."?
>>
>> Isn't that a respectable and natural attributive use of "highly strung"?
>
> I have already conceded that somewhere along the line this peculiar usage
> seems to have crept into idiomatic BrE.
Or it has slipped out of AmE.
> But frequency of occurrence of
> an off form does not in itself legitimize that form, else "hand me them
> tools" would have become standard centuries ago.
"Highly strung" is not an "off form" in BrE.
> I repeat that the difference is fairly clearly shown by the difference
> between "a highly pitched roof" and "a highly strung person": a pitched
> roof is a comprehensible thing, but a strung person is not. When
> "highly" means generically "very much", and is applied to an adjective
> that can stand on its own two legs, all is well; but when "high" refers
> to a metaphorical zone (and "high-pitched" is a metaphor derived from the
> tension in an instrument string that is tautened to make a sound high in
> pitch), and the adjective totters about when left on its own, then what
> is wanted is the compound adjective with "high-" as a prefix.
See my other reply.
--
James
Chuck Riggs
wrote:
>Chuck Riggs wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:15:42 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>>>> James Hogg wrote:
>>>>> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>>>>>> James Hogg wrote:
>>>>>> [...]
>>>>>>> And a roof can be either "high-pitched" or "highly pitched".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Like my books; but still, few buy them {nowadays}.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Buy or die!" <--- high pitch
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://aman.members.sonic.net/pricelist_order.html
>>>>> Shouldn't that read "Ordure Form"?
>>>>>
>>>> Your quip comes about 20 years too late. I used "Ordure Form" for many
>>>> years for the amusement of my clients in 87 countries.
>>> That shows how long it is since I ordered anything from you.
>>
>> Instead of another gratuitous crack, I was hoping for an admission of
>> your possible error regarding the popularity and usage of
>> "high-strung" vs "highly strung". Oh well.
>
>As you can see from other responses, "highly strung" is the most popular
>form in British English.
>And Rey drew the correct conclusion when he wrote:
>"He has been *highly strung* all his life." is -- based on your, Nick's,
>and James's replies -- perfect *British* English and *Australian* English.
>
>As for the gratuitous crack, I'm not sure what you mean. Rey used to
>call his order forms "ordure forms" back in the days when I last saw one
>of them.
I got the impression you were dismissing Rey's data because it showed
one of your statements to be wrong, but today I can't determine why I
thought that.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs,
An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE
Chuck Riggs
wrote:
>Chuck Riggs wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:50:25 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> I think I myself would say "high-pitched", but I would not be surprised
>>> or offended to hear someone else use "highly pitched".
>>
>> I believe the usual
>
>AmE
Oh?
>> expression is "high-pitched".
Google lists 72,700 instances of high-pitched from sites with a UK
domain name. To disprove it is not an AmE spelling, as you state, I
didn't think it necessary to check other English language ones.
sjde...@yahoo.com
> On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:17:49 +1100, Peter Moylan <gro.nalyomp@retep>
> wrote:
>
> >Chuck Riggs wrote:
> >> wrote:
>
> >> <snip>
>
> >>> I think I myself would say "high-pitched", but I would not be surprised
> >>> or offended to hear someone else use "highly pitched".
>
> >> I believe the usual
>
> >AmE
>
> Oh?
>
> >> expression is "high-pitched".
>
> Google lists 72,700 instances of high-pitched from sites with a UK
> domain name. To disprove it is not an AmE spelling, as you state, I
> didn't think it necessary to check other English language ones.
I'm not sure whether "high-pitched" is AmE or not, but that number
doesn't seem like enough on its own to refute the theory. Google shows
141,000 hits for "diaper", 782,000 hits for "theater", and 880,000 for
"defense" with "site:.uk".
Nick
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:31:02 +0000, HVS wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> Look in the print edition under "strung", definition 4.b.
>
> Perhaps, then, that is simply British idiom (and still silly). I just
> posted an extensive answer to your previously posted question "Do you
> sincerely believe that, on your model, non-silly English usage demands
> the phrase 'a high-sexed person'? If not, why not?" I hope and believe
> that it makes definitively clear what the issues here are.
Yes. We've been trying to tell you it's British idiom since the start
of the week. I'm glad you've finally noticed.
Once you've recognised it as idiom, the "and still silly" remark is
pointless. All idiom is, to some extent, silly. If it was regular and
logical it wouldn't be idiom.
Get over it.
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
Eric Walker
[...]
> Eric Walker wrote:
>
>> . . . But the principle remains: adjectives that require two parts to
>> make sense are compounds of individual adjectives, not a pairing of
>> adverb-with-adjective.
>
> What about "well-made"? Let's take the phrase "a well-made sword" and
> examine it according to your principle.
>
> It's an adjective. Here I agree.
>
> It requires both parts to make sense. Here I agree. At least, I can't
> think of any context where I would say "a made sword".
>
> It's a compound of individual adjectives. Here I would have to disagree.
> I think it's a pairing of adverb-with-adjective.
The occasional exception is always going to arise with rules of thumb,
which is what I presented those ideas as:
There is no absolute model for "Xly Yed" versus "X-Yed". What it comes
down to is whether X has a true adverbial function or is part of a
compound adjective. We can try a rule-of-thumb approach . . . .
"The sword is made well." That is a satisfactory statement, whereas "Her
voice is pitched highly" is not (nor is "His personality is strung
highly"); that is why one can be turned about and the others not.
Donna Richoux
> Eric Walker wrote:
> > On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:38:23 +0000, HVS wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> >> I'm not strong on the terminology, but where does that place usages like
> >> Conan Doyle's "I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife,
> >> for she is a nervous, highly strung woman..."?
> >>
> >> Isn't that a respectable and natural attributive use of "highly strung"?
> >
> > I have already conceded that somewhere along the line this peculiar usage
> > seems to have crept into idiomatic BrE.
>
> Or it has slipped out of AmE.
I looked a while at Google Books, and it tends to show* that
"high-strung" is older then "highly strung" (I'm ignoring hyphens
here). And the old "high-strung" was British (I assume American also, no
evidence yet).
I hunted in particular for what it meant before it was a figure of
speech. What objects were said to be strung high, and what did it mean?
Before it referred to nerves, minds, health, etc.
So far, I found: instruments, harps, and frame. "Frame" makes me think
of a loom, but I don't see any direct evidence. I suppose what is "high"
is tension, although nobody says so. What I'd like to find is something
exactly like "well-tempered clavier."
Example of old use of "high strung":
The Gentleman's magazine, Volume 24
Author John Nichols
Publisher E. Cave, 1754
[The Gentleman's Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave
in January, 1731]
With rich perfumes our locks imbu'd,
Our inftruments high ftrung;
Perplexing cares that would intrude,
Let wine's, let mufic's charms exclude.
A use of it to refer to humans:
James Thomson 1700-1748, Scottish poet:
... See ! how the younglings frisk along the meads, "
As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind ;
Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds :
Yet: what but high-strung health this dancing
pleafaunce breeds!
*Dates in Google Books are so often wrong. Just this evening, I found a
book it dated 1832 which from its content had to be 1882, and another
one dated 1803 which had stuff from 1820 and which turned out be from
1863. So this is a dicey business.
"Highly strung" kicks in sometime in the 19th century, but given the
problem I'm having with years, I hate to give an early citation... God
in heaven, here's another one, marked 1809 but actually from 1899. I've
sent Google Books notice on the other two but this is trying my
patience.
Now, here's a switch -- another book, said to be 1808, must be wrong,
but at least someone posted a "review" with the line: "Year published is
incorrect - should be 1898." That was kind of them.
I can now safely say that Google Books has no examples of "highly
strung" before 1820, but I don't know when it truly starts.
--
Best - Donna Richoux
Eric Walker
[...]
Nice research. I think these quotations suggest rather strongly that the
use derives, as I suggested earlier, from the strings on an instrument:
the strings under the most tension produce the highest notes. Thus, in
"high-strung", "high" is an adjective referring to the range in which the
note sounds.
> I can now safely say that Google Books has no examples of "highly
> strung" before 1820, but I don't know when it truly starts.
It is probably coincident with the rise of interest in systematic grammar
that began in the later 19th century, and whose overt expression began
with the Fowler brothers. Someone, I'd wager, hyper-corrected and it
stuck to the wall.
"Whom is it?" asked Cyril, for he had been to night school.
-- Anthony Powell
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:12:16 +0100, Donna Richoux wrote:
>
>> I can now safely say that Google Books has no examples of "highly
>> strung" before 1820, but I don't know when it truly starts.
>
> It is probably coincident with the rise of interest in systematic
> grammar that began in the later 19th century,
Unfortunately, it seems to be earlier than that.
A want of unison, arising from hearts and minds too highly strung,
is the fountain of the poet's proverbial unhappiness--full even to
overflowing.
_The United States Literary Gazette_, June 1,
1825.
I see another verifiable hit from 1827, one in 1830, and a number in
the first half of the 1830s. Walter Scott used it in _Castle
Dangerous_ (1832). I'd guess that that's about when it started to
becom somewhat common.
> and whose overt expression began with the Fowler brothers.
Seems to be at least thirty years older than the elder of the two.
> Someone, I'd wager, hyper-corrected and it stuck to the wall.
Probably.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |To find the end of Middle English,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |you discover the exact date and
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |time the Great Vowel Shift took
|place (the morning of May 5, 1450,
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |at some time between neenuh fiftehn
(650)857-7572 |and nahyn twenty-fahyv).
| Kevin Wald
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
John Holmes
>
> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has
> been high-strung all his life?"
If he was, he probably had a short life and a long neck. Try "highly
strung".
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au
Eric Walker
> Eric Walker wrote:
>>
>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has
>> been high-strung all his life?"
>
> If he was, he probably had a short life and a long neck. Try "highly
> strung".
Um, look upthread . . . .
John Holmes
> Eric Walker wrote:
>>
>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has
>> been high-strung all his life?"
>
> If he was, he probably had a short life and a long neck. Try "highly
> strung".
[Apologies. There's been much water under the bridge since I wrote that
post some days ago. I just found it still stuck in my outbox, and it
wouldn't send until I re-edited it.]
Chuck Riggs
Ratios are what matter, not the fact that many, many terms are more
popular than high-pitched or highly pitched.
sjde...@yahoo.com
> On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:25:49 -0800 (PST), "sjdevn...@yahoo.com"
>
>
>
> <sjdevn...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >On Jan 26, 7:05 am, Chuck Riggs <chri...@eircom.net> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:17:49 +1100, Peter Moylan <gro.nalyomp@retep>
> >> wrote:
>
> >> >Chuck Riggs wrote:
> >> >> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:50:25 +0100, James Hogg <Jas.H...@gOUTmail.com>
> >> >> wrote:
>
> >> >> <snip>
>
> >> >>> I think I myself would say "high-pitched", but I would not be surprised
> >> >>> or offended to hear someone else use "highly pitched".
>
> >> >> I believe the usual
>
> >> >AmE
>
> >> Oh?
>
> >> >> expression is "high-pitched".
>
> >> Google lists 72,700 instances of high-pitched from sites with a UK
> >> domain name. To disprove it is not an AmE spelling, as you state, I
> >> didn't think it necessary to check other English language ones.
>
> >I'm not sure whether "high-pitched" is AmE or not, but that number
> >doesn't seem like enough on its own to refute the theory. Google shows
> >141,000 hits for "diaper", 782,000 hits for "theater", and 880,000 for
> >"defense" with "site:.uk".
>
> Ratios are what matter, not the fact that many, many terms are more
> popular than high-pitched or highly pitched.
I agree, and would have found a ratio much more compelling than a
single number.
Robin Bignall
wrote:
>John Holmes wrote:
>> Eric Walker wrote:
>>>
>>> Would one write "He has been high strung all his life?" Or "He has
>>> been high-strung all his life?"
>>
>> If he was, he probably had a short life and a long neck. Try "highly
>> strung".
>
>[Apologies. There's been much water under the bridge since I wrote that
>post some days ago. I just found it still stuck in my outbox, and it
>wouldn't send until I re-edited it.]
It was obviously so highly strung that it was nervous about venturing
out into the harsh world of AUE.
--
Robin
(BrE)
Herts, England
Richard Bollard
wrote:
>Eric Walker filted:
>>
>>On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:46:26 +0100, James Hogg wrote:
>>
>>> Since "highly strung" is so perfectly acceptable to me and many others
>>> (the OED, for instance, defines "nervous" as "excitable, highly strung,
>>> easily agitated, anxious, timid"), I wonder why some people object to
>>> it. Or are they making some subtle distinction between "highly strung"
>>> and "high-strung"?
>>
>>Yes, a fundamental one. "Strung" is an adjective, but "high-
>>strung" (with or without hyphen) is not a case of an adverb modifying an
>>adjective (which would warrant "highly"): it is a compounding of meaning,
>>which is why the hyphen is mandatory. Compare hypothetical "highly
>>falutin'".
>
>People can get highly-dudgeoned about this sort of thing....
>
>("That's highly selassie of you"--Hawkeye Pierce, responding to the thanks of an
>Ethiopian soldier)....r
And before that, The Frost Report "One of the African leaders was
highly Selassie, some were fairly Selassie and others weren't Selassie
at all".
--
Richard Bollard
Canberra Australia
To email, I'm at AMT not spAMT.
Richard Bollard
wrote:
>Eric Walker wrote:
>
>> I repeat: swear to me on a stack of holy books that you yourself would be
>> comfortable referring to someone as having a "highly pitched" voice and
>> then we can continue.
>
>I can't do that, because I don't have any books that I consider to be
>holy. Would you accept an affirmation?
>
>I hereby affirm that I find the phrase "highly pitched voice" to be
>perfectly normal usage; and, furthermore, that I find "high-pitched
>voice" to be a grossly ungrammatical attempt to use "high" where we
>would normally expect an adverb.
For whatever reasons, my own usage is "highly-strung" and
"high-pitched". Sans and avec hyphen (Australians are laid-back,
informal or sloppy when it comes to those little horizontals).
As usual, Australian usage is somewhere between British and American.
Richard Bollard
<am...@sonic.net> wrote:
>James Hogg wrote:
>>
>> Reinhold {Rey} Aman wrote:
>>> James Hogg wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>> And a roof can be either "high-pitched" or "highly pitched".
>>>>
>>> Like my books; but still, few buy them {nowadays}.
>>>
>>> "Buy or die!" <--- high pitch
>>>
>>> http://aman.members.sonic.net/pricelist_order.html
>>
>> Shouldn't that read "Ordure Form"?
>>
>Your quip comes about 20 years too late. I used "Ordure Form" for many
>years for the amusement of my clients in 87 countries.
I once changed an "Out of Order" notice on a toilet.
James Hogg
English allows variation in these constructions. I googled to see what
tennis players and archers say about the stringing of their implements.
I found "tight-strung" and "tightly strung" bows and rackets, in both
attributive and predicative uses.
The adjective occurs in Anne Frank's diary, where both translations have
"tightly strung":
"accusations which are leveled at me repeatedly every day, and find
their mark, like shafts from a tightly strung bow and which are just as
hard to draw from my body."
"accusations that she hurls at me day after day, piercing me like arrows
from a tightly strung bow, which are nearly as impossible to pull from
my body."
--
James
the Omrud
I suppose it might have been heard on The Frost Report, but it was
certainly on "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again".
--
David
Evan Kirshenbaum
Are you certain? I recall that having been claimed here before I knew
about ISIRTA, but then I got an iPod and listened to (I believe) the
whole run and was surprised not to have encountered it.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Those who would give up essential
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |Liberty, to purchase a little
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |temporary Safety, deserve neither
|Liberty nor Safety.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Benjamin Franklin
(650)857-7572
the Omrud
> the Omrud<usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 28/01/2010 03:21, Richard Bollard wrote:
>>> On 23 Jan 2010 21:08:15 -0800, R H Draney<dado...@spamcop.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ("That's highly selassie of you"--Hawkeye Pierce, responding to
>>>> the thanks of an Ethiopian soldier)....r
>>>
>>> And before that, The Frost Report "One of the African leaders was
>>> highly Selassie, some were fairly Selassie and others weren't Selassie
>>> at all".
>>
>> I suppose it might have been heard on The Frost Report, but it was
>> certainly on "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again".
>
> Are you certain? I recall that having been claimed here before I knew
> about ISIRTA, but then I got an iPod and listened to (I believe) the
> whole run and was surprised not to have encountered it.
I am certain. I'm not quite sure how to find it though. I think it
might have been in the same segment as the stuff about going to India to
see the Yogi. "Did he take you in?" "Oh yes, completely".
--
David
LFS
> On 30/01/2010 01:10, Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>> the Omrud<usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On 28/01/2010 03:21, Richard Bollard wrote:
>>>> On 23 Jan 2010 21:08:15 -0800, R H Draney<dado...@spamcop.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ("That's highly selassie of you"--Hawkeye Pierce, responding to
>>>>> the thanks of an Ethiopian soldier)....r
>>>>
>>>> And before that, The Frost Report "One of the African leaders was
>>>> highly Selassie, some were fairly Selassie and others weren't Selassie
>>>> at all".
Back in the 1950s my father was making similar jokes about the name.
>>>
>>> I suppose it might have been heard on The Frost Report, but it was
>>> certainly on "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again".
>>
>> Are you certain? I recall that having been claimed here before I knew
>> about ISIRTA, but then I got an iPod and listened to (I believe) the
>> whole run and was surprised not to have encountered it.
>
> I am certain. I'm not quite sure how to find it though. I think it
> might have been in the same segment as the stuff about going to India to
> see the Yogi. "Did he take you in?" "Oh yes, completely".
>
I don't know how you remember this stuff. I heard something funny on the
News Quiz last night and tried to repeat it to Husband half an hour
later but had forgotten it. I remembered it briefly early this morning
but by breakfast was left only with the memory that there was something
I wanted to tell him. He can listen to the repeat but I'm worried about
all my non-functioning neurons.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
the Omrud
That's easy. It was broadcast 40 years ago, when my brain still had
spare capacity.
--
David