A week Monday vs. a week from Monday
Pierre Jelenc
>I moved to Kitchener, Ontario (west of Toronto) last December from Los
>Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
>unfamiliar to me before. An example:
>
> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>
>where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
>today".
(.................)
>Can anyone else comment on this expression? Is it . . .
>
>. . . a British usage that was inherited by Canada?
The British usage I am familiar with would be "Monday week". Also in the
past, "Monday was a week", i.e. on Monday before last.
Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
rc...@panix.com
Michael Coady
>In article <1993Sep5.0...@mks.com>
>ri...@mks.com (Rich Wales) writes:
>
>> I moved to Kitchener, Ontario (west of Toronto) last December from Los
>> Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
>> unfamiliar to me before. An example:
>>
>> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>>
>> where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
>> today".
(snip)
Let me throw in a couple more. I've heard that Americans
don't use "in hospital" as in "My mother is in hospital", but that
they insist on inserting the pesky "the" word before hospital. For
some reason, it's not used here. Also, when I was studying in L.A.,
people looked at me a bit strangely (more so than usually) when I
talked about doing something "this aft". Is that not used in the
states, or were my friends simply a subset of Americans who hadn't
used this contraction?
Mike
--
Michael J. Coady
CO...@ERE.UMONTREAL.CA
"I don't got to show you no stinking .signature..."
Alan J Flavell
pe...@bignode.equinox.gen.nz (Pete Moore) writes:
>
>Rich Wales (ri...@mks.com) wrote:
>>I moved to Kitchener, Ontario (west of Toronto) last December from Los
>>Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
>>unfamiliar to me before. An example:
>
>> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>
>>where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
>>today".
My impression of British usage is that "a week on Monday" or "a week
next Monday" would be usual.
There is a bit of a trap, however. "Next Wednesday" when uttered on
a Tuesday (for example) is unlikely to refer to tomorrow - it
probably refers to Wednesday of next week. Before I came to Glasgow
I would have said that most speakers avoid such a construction
because of its potential ambiguity. Here, I notice such constructions
often used: even when the day in question is several days away, the
speaker says "this Thursday" for "Thursday of this week" and "next
Thursday" for Thursday of next week (for example). When challenged,
the speaker insists there IS no ambiguity. I hope some native Scots
can clarify this, or correct me if I'm confused.
Pete Moore
>I moved to Kitchener, Ontario (west of Toronto) last December from Los
>Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
>unfamiliar to me before. An example:
> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
>today".
>The way I grew up expressing this concept (in California) was to say
>"a week from Monday". My first impression of "a week Monday" was that
>something was missing.
In NZ, "Monday week" is a common expression for the same thing.
>I've also heard "two weeks Monday", etc.
I have heard this rendered as "Monday fortnight" in NZ.
--
+------------------- pe...@bignode.equinox.gen.nz -------------------+
| The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things |
| that lifts human life above the level of farce, and gives it some |
| of the grace of tragedy - Steven Weinberg |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
John Girash
>The way I grew up expressing this concept (in California) was to say
>"a week from Monday". My first impression of "a week Monday" was that
>something was missing.
>I've also heard "two weeks Monday", etc.
>Can anyone else comment on this expression?
I don't know where it came from, but I'll guess that it's British in origin:
when I was at Western, we had a Applied Math prof from Australia who used
phraseology like "Monday week" to say the same thing that the rest of us
would phrase "a week Monday". We all looked at him puzzledly the first
time he said this (most but not all of the students in the class were from
Ontario), and he explained the meaning.
BTW, by "the rest of us" above, I'm referring to the rest of that class, and
don't mean to imply that I know how anybody else reading this would phrase it!
--
"Don't listen when you're told / About the best days in your life : Spirit of
A useless old expression, it means / Passing time until you die." : the West
---------------- John A Girash ----- gir...@cfa.harvard.edu --------------
If these were Harvard's opinions, it would be up north (but not in Toronto).
Rich Wales
Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
unfamiliar to me before. An example:
We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
today".
The way I grew up expressing this concept (in California) was to say
"a week from Monday". My first impression of "a week Monday" was that
something was missing.
Even though I had vacationed several times in various parts of Canada
and interacted with many Canadians in the past decade, I had never heard
anyone use this "a week Monday" construction before moving here.
I've also heard "two weeks Monday", etc.
Can anyone else comment on this expression? Is it . . .
. . . a British usage that was inherited by Canada?
. . . a Canadianism, common up here but not used anywhere else?
. . . a New England-ism that was shared by southern Ontario (and perhaps
spread from there to the rest of Canada)?
. . . something unique to the Kitchener-Waterloo area, possibly influ-
enced by German and Mennonite immigration to this region?
. . . just something weird that no one else has ever heard of? :-}
--
Rich Wales (VE3HKZ, WA6SGA/VE3) // Mortice Kern Systems Inc.
ri...@mks.com // 35 King Street North
+1 519 884-2251; fax: 884-8861 // Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2J 2W9
Ron Galea
>Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
>unfamiliar to me before. An example:
>
> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>
>where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
>today".
.
Interesting subject.
.
In Australia I remember hearing the similar expression "Monday week",
meaning exactly the same thing. My parents were British immigrants,
lower-middle-class tradespeople from London, and they always said
"Monday after next", which for clarity and logicality seems
unbeatable. But "a week Monday" sounds most right to me, and I'm from
downtown Toronto.
.
Ron.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Benjamin J. Tilly
> I moved to Kitchener, Ontario (west of Toronto) last December from Los
> Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
> unfamiliar to me before. An example:
>
> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>
> where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
> today".
>
(snip)
> Can anyone else comment on this expression? Is it . . .
>
> . . . a British usage that was inherited by Canada?
>
> . . . a Canadianism, common up here but not used anywhere else?
>
> . . . a New England-ism that was shared by southern Ontario (and perhaps
> spread from there to the rest of Canada)?
>
> . . . something unique to the Kitchener-Waterloo area, possibly influ-
> enced by German and Mennonite immigration to this region?
>
> . . . just something weird that no one else has ever heard of? :-}
>
I remember using it in BC so I think that it is likely in common use
across Canada. Note that there are other linguistic differences
depending on where you are. For example when I moved to New England I
was thrown by "5 of 10" to mean what I would have meant by "5 to 10",
ie "9:55". Also I have seen many Americans thrown by the word "billet",
even though it is in common usage where I grew up, and likely also in
the rest of Canada. And of course the famous "zed" vs "zee". However I
once ran across a very old dictionary that was upset at the French
"zed", and wondered what was happening to the traditional English
"izzard"? :-)
Ben Tilly
Gary Cook
>
> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>
> where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
> today".
>
>
> I've also heard "two weeks Monday", etc.
>
> Can anyone else comment on this expression? Is it . . .
>
Yes, it's something I use fairly often and is common in the UK. I have
a Dutch friend whos English is very good and I'm sure that he says it
too (and he speaks BBC English !)
Two weeks/three weeks/x weeks monday is common also, where x is more
or less any number you want.
-grc.
--
Gary Cook, Tel:(44)279 402615
BNR Europe Limited. Fax:(44)279 441589
London Road, Email:g...@bnr.co.uk
Harlow,
England CM17 9NA.
Peter Rauch
Greg Shenaut <fzsh...@dale.ucdavis.edu> wrote:
>In article <GRC.93Se...@bhars209.bnr.co.uk> g...@bnr.co.uk
(Gary Cook) writes:
>[...]
>>Two weeks/three weeks/x weeks monday is common also, where x is more
>>or less any number you want.
>
>_two days monday_ or _two hours monday_?
>
>Or _a week Christmas_, _an hour noon_ etc?
>
>Greg
- - - - - - - - - - - -
I'm curious about a related use:
Quick: Today is Monday. How many days from today until next Monday?
OK. What's your answer?
Now, considering it more deliberately, how many days are there?
I'll follow-up after your responses.
Peter
Eddie Rooney
|> In article <1993Sep5.0...@mks.com> ri...@mks.com (Rich Wales) writes:
|> > We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
|> >
|> > where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
|> > today".
|> >
|> a Dutch friend whos English is very good and I'm sure that he says it
|> too (and he speaks BBC English !)
"A week on Monday" would be my normal expression, but then maybe I'm
old-fashioned (or just northern - Liverpudlian) in my usage, because
I still say "See you on Monday" rather than "See you Monday". I've never
heard of "Monday was a week" (subsequent post).
Adam Neil Villani
Michael Coady <co...@ERE.UMontreal.CA> wrote:
> Let me throw in a couple more. I've heard that Americans
>don't use "in hospital" as in "My mother is in hospital", but that
>they insist on inserting the pesky "the" word before hospital. For
>some reason, it's not used here. Also, when I was studying in L.A.,
>people looked at me a bit strangely (more so than usually) when I
>talked about doing something "this aft". Is that not used in the
>states, or were my friends simply a subset of Americans who hadn't
>used this contraction?
I don't believe it's used anywhere in the U.S.A. It's true about,
"In the hospital". Perhaps a linguist could explain to us why we say
it that way, why you say it your way, etc. It really sounds funny to us
to hear it your way. (Likewise for you, I presume).
One point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
dichotomy in highway names. As far as I can tell, Southern California
is the only place in the world where highways are prefaced be the article
"the". An example: Instructions to get to Hollywood from Pasadena: "Take
the 110 South to the 101 North, get off on Sunset (Blvd.) and head west."
And of course the difference between these three:
A) "I was driving down Santa Monica..."
B) "I was driving down to Santa Monica..."
C) "I was driving down the Santa Monica..."
A) refers to Santa Monica Blvd.
B) refers to the city of Santa Monica
C) refers to the Santa Monica Freeway
In the past ten years or so, though, there has been more of an effort to
call highways by their numbers, i.e. the 110 instead of the Pasadena
Freeway.
n.b. I realize that B) is structurally different than A or C; it's just
put in to show three different things Santa Monica can refer to.
---------------------
Adam Villani
ad...@cco.caltech.edu
"There's a fat old lady outside the saloon
playing out the credit cards she plays Fortune
The deck is uneven right from the start
And all of her hands are playing a part."
---Genesis, "Dancing out with the Moonlit Knight"
--
Disclaimer: Everything I say conforms exactly to Caltech's official
position on the subject, whatever it may be.
Greg Shenaut
>or less any number you want.
Do you also get _two months monday_ or _two years monday_? How about
_two days monday_ or _two hours monday_?
Or _a week Christmas_, _an hour noon_ etc?
Greg
--
Greg Shenaut -- gksh...@ucdavis.edu
Andy Traff Trafford
>
>The British usage I am familiar with would be "Monday week". Also in the
>past, "Monday was a week", i.e. on Monday before last.
>
>Pierre
I've never heard this one. How would it be used?
Traff
Michael Coady
>In article <1993Sep6.0...@cc.umontreal.ca>,
>Michael Coady <co...@ERE.UMontreal.CA> wrote:
<snip>
>One point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
>dichotomy in highway names. As far as I can tell, Southern California
>is the only place in the world where highways are prefaced be the article
>"the". An example: Instructions to get to Hollywood from Pasadena: "Take
>the 110 South to the 101 North, get off on Sunset (Blvd.) and head west."
>And of course the difference between these three:
>A) "I was driving down Santa Monica..."
>B) "I was driving down to Santa Monica..."
>C) "I was driving down the Santa Monica..."
>
>A) refers to Santa Monica Blvd.
>B) refers to the city of Santa Monica
>C) refers to the Santa Monica Freeway
>
Mustn't forget that there's little Santa Monica Blvd and big
Santa Monica Blvd (which should tell Adam where I studied).
Todd Andrew Simpson
[...]
One point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
dichotomy in highway names. As far as I can tell, Southern California
is the only place in the world where highways are prefaced be the article
"the". An example: Instructions to get to Hollywood from Pasadena: "Take
the 110 South to the 101 North, get off on Sunset (Blvd.) and head west."
And of course the difference between these three:
A) "I was driving down Santa Monica..."
B) "I was driving down to Santa Monica..."
C) "I was driving down the Santa Monica..."
A) refers to Santa Monica Blvd.
B) refers to the city of Santa Monica
C) refers to the Santa Monica Freeway
In the past ten years or so, though, there has been more of an effort to
call highways by their numbers, i.e. the 110 instead of the Pasadena
Freeway.
I've heard that this usage is spreading. I think it appears in the
San Francisco Bay area, and lately my father told me that the traffic
commentators around Washington are calling U.S. Highway 50 "the 50".
It may be that the usage is restricted to freeways. For instance, I
think "the 50" would refer only to 50 eastbound out of Washington; 50
westbound is not a freeway. (Most of the highways traffic
commentators talk about are freeways.)
I think what sounds a little weird is the use of "the" with a number.
If a freeway has a name, it's not uncommon to use "the", and sometimes
would sound funny without it. "I was driving down Santa Monica Freeway",
for instance.
Another thing I noticed when I was in California is that "freeway" and
"expressway" don't mean the same thing there. Where I grew up near
Washington, both words meant "highway with no intersections or traffic
lights", but it seems that in California only "freeway" has this
meaning. I was on a road in Palo Alto called Central Expressway, and
there were intersections and traffic lights (though not very many).
Todo
Pierre Jelenc
It's rare, I'll admit, but the OED confirms it: "Last Saturday was a week
I touched at Liverpool ...". Apparently one can also say "last Saturday
week". Both mean "Saturday before last".
Benjamin J. Tilly
co...@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Michael Coady) writes:
>
> Let me throw in a couple more. I've heard that Americans
> don't use "in hospital" as in "My mother is in hospital", but that
> they insist on inserting the pesky "the" word before hospital. For
> some reason, it's not used here. Also, when I was studying in L.A.,
> people looked at me a bit strangely (more so than usually) when I
> talked about doing something "this aft". Is that not used in the
> states, or were my friends simply a subset of Americans who hadn't
> used this contraction?
>
Growing up in BC I always used the "the", and I never said "this aft".
I never heard them used either. Therefore I have to say that it is not
just limited to the US.
Ben Tilly
Gary Cook
>
> Do you also get _two months monday_ or _two years monday_? How about
> _two days monday_ or _two hours monday_?
>
> Or _a week Christmas_, _an hour noon_ etc?
>
Ummm ? Two years monday can actually mean two years *ago* next monday ....
eg. "We met two years monday", obviously this can't be confused with
meeting in the future because of the use of the past tense.
Well, a week christmas ???? Maybe a weak christmas !
Gwyn Williams
Todd Andrew Simpson
Quick: Today is Monday. How many days from today until next Monday?
OK. What's your answer?
Seven.
Now, considering it more deliberately, how many days are there?
Still seven. The question boils down to, How many days from today
until today? I say zero. Then the number of days from today until n
weeks from today is 7n. The number of days from today until n weeks
from tomorrow is 7n + 1, and so on....
Here's another one that can confuse people: I used to live on the
fifth floor of a dormitory in college. One enters the dormitory on
the first floor. Quick: How many flights of stairs must one climb to
get to the room where I used to live?
Todo
Karen Hutchins
|> ad...@cco.caltech.edu (Adam Neil Villani) writes...
|>
|> call highways by their numbers, i.e. the 110 instead of the Pasadena
|> Freeway.
|>
|> I've heard that this usage is spreading. I think it appears in the
|> San Francisco Bay area, and lately my father told me that the traffic
|> commentators around Washington are calling U.S. Highway 50 "the 50".
|> It may be that the usage is restricted to freeways. For instance, I
|> think "the 50" would refer only to 50 eastbound out of Washington; 50
|> westbound is not a freeway. (Most of the highways traffic
|> commentators talk about are freeways.)
In Britain we use the numbers with a "the", but perhaps that's because
our numbers are meaningful, i.e. everyone knows that the M1 is a motorway
so you don't have to say "take the M1 motorway", and likewise the A1 and
the B1.
Also, I don't think major roads usually have names, or at least once they
become upgraded to motorway status I don't think anybody uses them any
more (except maybe the locals who used that name before). Anyway, I wait
for someone to correct me on that! Of course, you could tell someone
to take the London road, but that isn't necessarily its name.
|>
|> I think what sounds a little weird is the use of "the" with a number.
|> If a freeway has a name, it's not uncommon to use "the", and sometimes
|> would sound funny without it. "I was driving down Santa Monica Freeway",
|> for instance.
I completely disagree, I think that normally it sounds better without the
"the", e.g. "I went shopping in Oxford Street". However, when I would use
"the" is if the name of the street is actually the destination, as I
assume is the case for the Santa Monica Freeway.
Something I found a bit odd in Nova Scotia was the fact that people drop
the second part of the name, i.e. "I went shopping in Oxford". I think
that's mostly because in Halifax there are so few streets anyway. I
can only think of two duplications where the second word is necessary to
distinguish between e.g. Young St and Young Ave. Whereas in a city in
Britain there are liable to be dozens of variations on the theme. Is
that true anywhere else?
In England it also sounds odd to drop the "street", particularly
since half of our street names are also the names of other towns, so
that 2nd sentence has a completely different implication from the 1st.
-Not speaking for ESTEC-
R o d Johnson
>anam...@garnet.berkeley.edu (Peter Rauch) asks...
>
> Quick: Today is Monday. How many days from today until next Monday?
>
> OK. What's your answer?
>
>Seven.
Here's another question. Can you say "a weak thread"? How about
"wrong newsgroup"?
Followups NOT to sci.lang, please.
--
* Rod Johnson
* r...@umich.edu
David R Tucker
|> I've heard that this usage is spreading. I think it appears in the
|> San Francisco Bay area, and lately my father told me that the traffic
|> commentators around Washington are calling U.S. Highway 50 "the 50".
|> It may be that the usage is restricted to freeways. For instance, I
|> think "the 50" would refer only to 50 eastbound out of Washington; 50
|> westbound is not a freeway. (Most of the highways traffic
|> commentators talk about are freeways.)
In Britain we use the numbers with a "the", but perhaps that's because
our numbers are meaningful, i.e. everyone knows that the M1 is a motorway
so you don't have to say "take the M1 motorway", and likewise the A1 and
the B1.
"The 128" and "the I-95" sound very weird. (In Maine, the latter is
called "the Interstate," because it's the only one that goes there.)
I completely disagree, I think that normally it sounds better without the
"the", e.g. "I went shopping in Oxford Street".
I go shopping *on* Oxford Street. I wouldn't want whatever was lying
about *in* Oxford Steet.
On a related note, while I buy things *in* Filine's, my fiancee, who is
from central Maine, buys things *into* Filene's. Almost as jarring
as pronouncing the 't' in "often."
(You do? How do you pronounce "soften"??)
-drt
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|David R. Tucker KG2S d...@athena.mit.edu|
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|`Most political sermons tech the congregation nothing except |
|what newspapers are taken at the Rectory.' -C.S. Lewis |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
eger...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
In article <1993Sep5.0...@mks.com>, ri...@mks.com (Rich Wales) writes:
> I moved to Kitchener, Ontario (west of Toronto) last December from Los
> Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
> unfamiliar to me before. An example:
>
> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>
> where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
> today".
>
>
> Can anyone else comment on this expression? Is it . . .
>
> . . . a British usage that was inherited by Canada?
In England you would hear people say: "Monday week".
To talk about two weeks from Monday it's "Monday fortnight".
Kari
(Always happy to confuse the issue even further)
Adam Cody Coggins
>FROM: mi...@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
>
>A linguist colleague of mine is struck by the fact that here in Kansas, at
>least, when giving highway numbers, one generally puts the number first:
>so it's "40 highway." I wonder whether that's the usage anywhere else?
>
>Ken
Here in Maryland, I usually hear "route 40", "40 West" (or East), or
just "40", as in "take 40 to the Beltway, then take the outer loop,
then take 95 south."
We sometimes use "outer loop" and "inner loop" to refer to the
counter-clockwise and clockwise-moving lanes of beltways. I believe
I recently saw a person from the UK posting a similar usage with
respect to a railway--"inner track" and "outer track."
-Cody Coggins <p00...@psilink.com>
Mari J Stoddard
>dichotomy in highway names. As far as I can tell, Southern California
>is the only place in the world where highways are prefaced be the article
>"the". An example: Instructions to get to Hollywood from Pasadena: "Take
>the 110 South to the 101 North, get off on Sunset (Blvd.) and head west."
>
As a native San Diegan (another Southern California town), I would like
to point out that calling highways "The Whatever" is limied to Los
Angeles, not Southern California in general. In much of California,
Interstates are called I-[number], while in Tennessee and Arizona they are
just called by their number, as in
Los Angeles: Take the Five to the Orange Exit
California: Take I-5 to the Orange Exit
USA: Take Five to the Orange Exit
--
Mari
--
Mari J. Stoddard stod...@gas.uug.arizona.edu
University of Arizona Health Sciences Library in Tucson
Ian A Househam
<stuff deleted>
: I completely disagree, I think that normally it sounds better without the
: "the", e.g. "I went shopping in Oxford Street". However, when I would use
: "the" is if the name of the street is actually the destination, as I
: assume is the case for the Santa Monica Freeway.
But the "the" *is* used when the name of the street is XXX Road. For
example, "I was driving down Oxford Street" but "I was driving down the
Old Kent Road". As to the reason for this, I have no idea. Is it
standard UK usage, or confined to London and the South East?
Ian
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian Househam, Email: pr...@syma.sussex.ac.uk
Science Policy Research Unit, Phone: +44 273 686758
University of Sussex, Fax: +44 273 685865
Ed Suranyi
<|> I think what sounds a little weird is the use of "the" with a number.
<|> If a freeway has a name, it's not uncommon to use "the", and sometimes
<|> would sound funny without it. "I was driving down Santa Monica Freeway",
<|> for instance.
<I completely disagree, I think that normally it sounds better without the
<"the", e.g. "I went shopping in Oxford Street".
That's the difference between streets and freeways, at least
in Los Angeles. You would say: I was driving down Santa Monica Blvd.
But: I was driving down the Santa Monica Freeway. Freeways take the
'the'. Streets don't.
Paul Neel
> In article <CCw9w...@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Benjamin...@dartmouth.edu (Benjamin J. Tilly) writes:
>>In article <1993Sep5.0...@mks.com>
> Let me throw in a couple more. I've heard that Americans
> don't use "in hospital" as in "My mother is in hospital", but that
> they insist on inserting the pesky "the" word before hospital.
We (U.S.) use hospital as a location rather than a condition. (i.e. "in
traction, in pain, etc.)
> ... Also, in L.A., people looked at me a bit strangely when I talked
> about doing something "this aft". Is that not used in the states,
> or were my friends simply a subset of Americans who hadn't used this
> contraction?
"aft" is a nautical term referring to the after (back) part of a ship.
PM is sometimes used for afternoon but I have never heard "aft" so used.
PN
Paul Neel
> In article <1993Sep6.0...@cc.umontreal.ca>,
> One point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
> dichotomy ...
I have heard/read several sources (sorry, don't recall) over the years that
attribute our (U.S.) over use of "the" to the preponderance of Irish
speakers of English in our recent (since 1850) past. I do not recall the
rationale but I gather that it is a trait of Irish English. Does this ring
a bell with anyone else?
PN
Adam Neil Villani
Mari J Stoddard <stod...@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu> wrote:
>As a native San Diegan (another Southern California town), I would like
>to point out that calling highways "The Whatever" is limied to Los
>Angeles, not Southern California in general. In much of California,
>Interstates are called I-[number], while in Tennessee and Arizona they are
>just called by their number, as in
>
you're right; San Diego is a different place.
Also, I was just in northern San Diego County yesterday; There are many county-
maintained highways/roads there, and they're given names like S-6, S-7, S-13,
etc. Automatically, my family, when referring to such roads, dropped the "the".
Somehow, when a numbered highway also has a letter, the letter serves as an
article. For example, when describing how to get from Oceanside to Palomar
Mountain, we said, "Just stay on the 76 until you hit S-6." There's only a few
county roads in L.A. county, and they usually have other names, like N-3 is
always referred to as Angeles Forest Highway, so I'm not sure how that usage
goes. Instinctively, I would call those things N-4 or N-7 or whatever, not
the N-4 or the N-7. Bizarre.
---------------------
Adam Villani
ad...@cco.caltech.edu
"From the moment I reached out to hold
I felt a sound
And what touches our soul slowly moves as touch rebounds
And to know that tempo will continue lost in trance of dances
As rhythm takes another turn
As is my want I only reach
To look in your eyes..." ---Yes,"Sound Chaser"
Marina Waltz
:
: > Let me throw in a couple more. I've heard that Americans
: > don't use "in hospital" as in "My mother is in hospital", but that
: > they insist on inserting the pesky "the" word before hospital.
:
: We (U.S.) use hospital as a location rather than a condition. (i.e. "in
: traction, in pain, etc.)
We say "in the hospital" here in Canada, too. On a similar
note, we also get "the flu".
Regards,
Marina
:
Alan J Flavell
"Adam Cody Coggins" <p00...@psilink.com> writes:
> I believe
>I recently saw a person from the UK posting a similar usage with
>respect to a railway--"inner track" and "outer track."
circle" of the Glasgow subway (underground railway), and the comment
(I am sorry, I have lost the attribution) was that a specialist
audience speaking about the London Underground Circle Line
refers to two tracks as the "inner rail" and the "outer rail".
This was new to me (I hope I have quoted it correctly), and
surprising, since in fact each track has two rails for driving on,
and two more for carrying the current, on that particular system.
Now, if you want to know which is clockwise and which anticlockwise,
you'll have to adjust for driving on the left! - or look from
underneath ;-)
By the way (oops, I am drifting from the charter of a.u.e!) I believe
there are countries where the trains "drive on the left" even though
the rule of the road is drive on the right (Italy for one, I think).
Alan
gss...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
In article <1993Sep6.0...@cc.umontreal.ca>, co...@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Michael Coady) writes:
> In article <26e591...@gap.caltech.edu> ad...@cco.caltech.edu (Adam Neil Villani) writes:
>>In article <1993Sep6.0...@cc.umontreal.ca>,
>>Michael Coady <co...@ERE.UMontreal.CA> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>One point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
>>dichotomy in highway names. As far as I can tell, Southern California
>>is the only place in the world where highways are prefaced be the article
>>"the".
Oh, I don't know... in Britain people drive on "the M5", and in Canada
they drive on "the 401" (although not, I believe, on "the 7" or
"the 23" etc.).
Kari
David J. Greenberger
>Los Angeles: Take the Five to the Orange Exit
>California: Take I-5 to the Orange Exit
>USA: Take Five to the Orange Exit
Here in New York, I guess we use a cross between what you refer to as
California and USA. Non-interstate highways are generally referred to by
simply the number or the number preceded by the word "Route" (i.e., "Take 13 to
Tops" or "Take Route 13 to Tops"). Interstates are normally also referred to
likewise, unless there's some sort of possible ambiguity (i.e., a
non-interstate with the same number or whatnot), in which case the "I-" is
used.
Of course, on roads that have both route numbers and names, the name is
frequently used when speaking with someone from the area who is likely to know
about the connection (i.e., "Take Meadow Street to Tops").
--
David J. Greenberger (607) 256-2171 d.gree...@cornell.edu
Michael Helm
|> In the past ten years or so, though, there has been more of an effort to
|> call highways by their numbers, i.e. the 110 instead of the Pasadena
|> Freeway.
|>
|> I've heard that this usage is spreading. I think it appears in the
|> San Francisco Bay area, and lately my father told me that the traffic
"The Nimitz" , "The Bayshore"
"The Embarcadero" (now gone)
However, the tendency is to use numbered designators (like "I-880")
for these, and because the Bay Area is so transient, the memory
& use of these names is disappearing. If I told someone to take
the Nimitz freeway to get somewhere, unless she were an oldtimer
around here (lived here > 4 years) chances are I'd have to
convert to the new usage & give the directions again.
--
Michael Helm
>of which day we meant when we talked about 'next Friday'.
>I used it to mean "the next Friday" whereas she used it for the Friday of next
>week.
This has always been ambiguous to me, & I have to ask people which
one they really mean if it's a matter of some appointment I have
to keep. I think that the basic meaning I have would be the same
as your wife's; for me, your meaning would be covered by the
simple name of the future day of the week ("On Monday, ...").
Is there any regional or cultural pattern to this usage?
I was raised in the midwestern US.
--
Stephanie M. Clarkson-Aines
>
>> > they drive on "the 401" (although not, I believe, on "the 7" or
>> > "the 23" etc.).
>
I always called it the 401, but I've called the other one "The four-hundred".
>> the 710 was the Long Beach Freeway. Did the M5 and 401 have names?
>
>No [1], but I think you're onto something there. For many years the
I thought the 401 used to be _The_ Queen's Highway, until we got to a
point where we needed more that _one_ :)
Highways 7&8, which, in Kitchener are also King St. and The
Conestoga Parkway (a name which has really fallen out of use by everyone
except the salesguys at Parkway Ford), are usually referred to as Highway #...
>rather than numbered -- the Don Valley Parkway ("the Don Valley") and the
For the last little while I noticed "the DVP" coming into use a lot, mostly
(I think) because it's easy to say, and CityTV traffic people like things
that are easy to say...but it has caught on...
Thes.
Pete Moore
>In article <1993Sep7.1...@yc.estec.esa.nl> ka...@yc8.yc.estec.esa.nl (Karen Hutchins) writes:
>> "I went shopping in Oxford Street".
>I go shopping *on* Oxford Street. I wouldn't want whatever was lying
>about *in* Oxford Steet.
I go shopping *in* Oxford Street. I wouldn't go shopping (or do anything
except drive) *on* Oxford St, because of the traffic.
--
+------------------- pe...@bignode.equinox.gen.nz -------------------+
| The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things |
| that lifts human life above the level of farce, and gives it some |
| of the grace of tragedy - Steven Weinberg |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Peter Rauch
Peter Moylan <pe...@tesla.newcastle.edu.au> wrote:
>Peter Rauch (anam...@garnet.berkeley.edu) wrote:
>
>>Quick: Today is Monday. How many days from today until next Monday?
>
>eight. There's definitely a cultural difference on the
>question of how half-days should be counted.
>
>If you really pinned me down, I'd say something like
>six and a half. That, I think, would be the typical
>considered response from someone with a scientific/mathematical
>background. I'd expect someone with a "humanities"
>background to come up with a different answer. There's
>another cultural difference for you.
>
>--
>Peter Moylan pe...@tesla.newcastle.edu.au
OK. Thanks for the several responses to my inquiry. Two responded seven
days. Peter Moylan responded "it depends on your cultural background",
and one thought this was the wrong group/thread.
In fact, it *was* this thread about Monday a week that caught my attention.
I have often wondered why in Spanish, for example, one says "de manana en ocho"
[a week from tomorrow] or literally "from tomorrow in eight", and in English
one always refers to *seven* days from whenever as being a week from whenever.
In Spanish, one might also say "en quince dias" [in 15 days] to mean "in
two weeks." I've never heard higher numbers used.
Anyway, what's going on here?
Peter
Peter Moylan
>Another thing I noticed when I was in California is that "freeway" and
>"expressway" don't mean the same thing there. Where I grew up near
>Washington, both words meant "highway with no intersections or traffic
>lights", but it seems that in California only "freeway" has this
>meaning. I was on a road in Palo Alto called Central Expressway, and
>there were intersections and traffic lights (though not very many).
There are other variants on this. The freeway between here
(Newcastle, Australia) and Sydney was built in sections, so that
for many years we had short sections of freeway-standard road
connected by long stretches of substandard highway. One of the
oldest high-quality sections had toll gates, and it was called
the Ourimbah Expressway. When the toll was dropped, the
name "Expressway" was changed to "Freeway". I'm not sure
whether this was related to the toll, though, because this
happened at about the same time as major extensions to the
freeway system.
The word "Tollway" also exists in Australian usage; but
the rules and terminology do vary from state to state.
--
Peter Moylan pe...@tesla.newcastle.edu.au
Peter Moylan
gss...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
>
> In England it also sounds odd to drop the "street",
With one exception --- it's quite common to go shopping in "The High".
(This is true in some places I've lived in, anyway.)
particularly
> since half of our street names are also the names of other towns, so
> that 2nd sentence has a completely different implication from the 1st.
Kari
John Colville
I discovered that my wife and I had different interpretations
of which day we meant when we talked about 'next Friday'.
I used it to mean "the next Friday" whereas she used it for the Friday of next
week.
John Colville
Werenfried Spit
In article <26e591...@gap.caltech.edu> ad...@cco.caltech.edu (Adam Neil a
Vill
>As far as I can tell, Southern California is the only place in the world
>where highways are prefaced be the article "the".
In Britain (to name but one example) people would 'take the M1' (or
get stuck on the M25).
Steve Hayes
>> . . . a British usage that was inherited by Canada?
>
>In England you would hear people say: "Monday week".
>To talk about two weeks from Monday it's "Monday fortnight".
In South Africa, whites say "Monday week".
Blacks have an interesting expression, "next of next week". I think the
British equivalent would be "today fortnight", but I'm not sure.
============================================================
Steve Hayes, Department of Missiology & Editorial Department
Univ. of South Africa, P.O. Box 392, Pretoria, 0001 South Africa
Internet: haye...@risc1.unisa.ac.za Fidonet: 5:7106/20.1
steve...@p1.f20.n7106.z5.fidonet.org
FAQ: Missiology is the study of Christian mission and is part of
the Faculty of Theology at Unisa
Steve Hayes
>: We (U.S.) use hospital as a location rather than a condition. (i.e. "in
>: traction, in pain, etc.)
>
>We say "in the hospital" here in Canada, too. On a similar
>note, we also get "the flu".
What if there's more than one hospital in town?
Steve Hayes
>>A linguist colleague of mine is struck by the fact that here in Kansas, at
>>least, when giving highway numbers, one generally puts the number first:
>>so it's "40 highway." I wonder whether that's the usage anywhere else?
>>
>>Ken
>
>Here in Maryland, I usually hear "route 40", "40 West" (or East), or
>just "40", as in "take 40 to the Beltway, then take the outer loop,
>then take 95 south."
I wonder if it relates to usage with regard to rivers.
Why is it "the river Thames" but "the Mississippi river"?
Steve Hayes
>
>Almost. It was a comment to my mentioning the "inner" and "outer
>circle" of the Glasgow subway (underground railway), and the comment
>(I am sorry, I have lost the attribution) was that a specialist
>audience speaking about the London Underground Circle Line
>refers to two tracks as the "inner rail" and the "outer rail".
>This was new to me (I hope I have quoted it correctly), and
>surprising, since in fact each track has two rails for driving on,
>and two more for carrying the current, on that particular system.
On the London Underground there are two rails for the current - a middle
one, between the running rails, and an outer one outside the running rails.
On British Rail, southern Region, there is only an outer rail for the
current. The running rails are used as the return (earth, ground).
Maybe "inner rail" refers to the middle rail on the Underground.
Steve Hayes
>There is a bit of a trap, however. "Next Wednesday" when uttered on
>a Tuesday (for example) is unlikely to refer to tomorrow - it
>probably refers to Wednesday of next week. Before I came to Glasgow
>I would have said that most speakers avoid such a construction
>because of its potential ambiguity. Here, I notice such constructions
>often used: even when the day in question is several days away, the
>speaker says "this Thursday" for "Thursday of this week" and "next
>Thursday" for Thursday of next week (for example). When challenged,
>the speaker insists there IS no ambiguity. I hope some native Scots
>can clarify this, or correct me if I'm confused.
I'm trying to think what South African usage is. If it is Monday, I would
say "On Wednesday". If it is Friday, I'll say "Next Wednesday" if I mean
Wednesday of the next week, and "Wednesday week" if I mean the Wednesday of
the week after. But also coom is to say "neeext Wednesday" (with the e in
next lengthened, and on a higher tone) to mean Wednesday week.
Alan J Flavell
haye...@risc1.unisa.ac.za (Steve Hayes) writes:
>
>In article <16C421260...@cernvm.cern.ch> FLA...@cernvm.cern.ch (Alan J Flavell) writes:
>> a specialist
>>audience speaking about the London Underground Circle Line
>>refers to two tracks as the "inner rail" and the "outer rail".
>
This is a *specialist* jargon referring to what you and I might call
the "inner track" (i.e the anticlockwise one, since trains drive on
the left here).
The attribution is Mark Brader, m...@sq.com, and he confirms by
email that I quoted him correctly.
I've removed sci.lang from the list of newsgroups: I would have
removed it from the previous one if I had noticed it in time.
Alan
Stewart Clamen
Add me to the your wife's list. I've even missed scheduled events
because I tend to interpret the expression differently.
--
Stewart M. Clamen Internet: cla...@cs.cmu.edu
School of Computer Science UUCP: uunet!"cla...@cs.cmu.edu"
Carnegie Mellon University Phone: +1 412 268 2145
5000 Forbes Avenue Fax: +1 412 681 5739
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891, USA
Scott Larnach
>From article <26e591...@gap.caltech.edu>, by ad...@cco.caltech.edu (Adam Neil Villani):
>> One point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
>> dichotomy ...
>I have heard/read several sources (sorry, don't recall) over the years that
>attribute our (U.S.) over use of "the" to the preponderance of Irish
>speakers of English in our recent (since 1850) past.
For what it's worth, in Scotland we use "the" like that. So I would
say "My brother's in the hospital just now". This is despite the fact
that there are quite a few hospitals in Edinburgh.
It's also common to hear phrases like "We're away to the racing"
rather than "We're going to the races".
Scott
Mark Brader
> > Oh, I don't know... in Britain people drive on "the M5", and in Canada
(Well, Ontario)
> > they drive on "the 401" (although not, I believe, on "the 7" or
> > "the 23" etc.).
"The 401" still sounds wrong enough to me that I don't use it; I've only
lived in Ontario for about 30 years now. But, yes, it is what everyone
else seems to say. By the way, the highway numbering convention here in
Ontario is that "400-series" numbers denote limited-access highways --
in other words, freeways, expressways, motorways, etc.
> Is there any correlation to numbered roads that used to have names? The
> 110 (yes, I am from Southern CA) was the Harbor Freeway until recently, and
> the 710 was the Long Beach Freeway. Did the M5 and 401 have names?
No [1], but I think you're onto something there. For many years the
highest-quality highway in Ontario *did* have a name rather than a number:
the Queen Elizabeth Way [2]. Today most people pronounce it "the QEW". It
originally led from Toronto to the US border at Niagara Falls [3], and
it was the first divided highway in Ontario. Many years later it was
upgraded to a freeway.
Now, the first sections of highways 400 and 401 to be opened were around
Toronto, and it seems reasonable to me to conjecture that Torontonians
adopted the form "the 401" for these freeways because it seemed like a
natural parallel to the existing "the QEW". And it would then be natural
for this usage to be copied elsewhere in Ontario as the 400-series highways
spread. It is also reinforced in Toronto because the other two major
freeways in the city are not provincial highways and are therefore named
rather than numbered -- the Don Valley Parkway ("the Don Valley") and the
Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway ("the Gardiner"). [4]
[1] Well, actually it *does* have a name, but it's one of those extra
names which nobody uses because it was added long after the road was
opened. It's the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway. Macdonald was the first
Prime Minister of Canada, and Cartier was a political leader of the same
period who had a large role in the creation of Canada as a country.
[2] Named not for Queen Elizabeth II but for her mother.
[3] Later a branch was opened leading to the bridge to Buffalo, and the
QEW then had three endpoints for many years. This must eventually have
been considered too confusing, because the portion from the junction of
the branches to Niagara Falls was finally redesignated as highway 420.
[4] Gardiner was the first chairman of Metropolitan Toronto. For a while
it looked as though Toronto was going to get another freeway to be called
the Spadina Expressway. Only a short section was built before the project
was killed, and it was redesignated "the William R. Allen Expressway".
This was still too embarrassing to the politicians, and although the short
road was built to freeway standards, they then renamed it "William R. Allen
Road" (and eventually extended it onto a non-freeway section, sort of
justifying the name). However, at least some people still say "the Allen".
--
Mark Brader "You don't SIT IN the traffic jam;
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto you ARE the traffic jam."
utzoo!sq!msb, m...@sq.com -- Werner Icking
This article is in the public domain.
Peter Moylan
>Here's another one that can confuse people: I used to live on the
>fifth floor of a dormitory in college. One enters the dormitory on
>the first floor. Quick: How many flights of stairs must one climb to
>get to the room where I used to live?
Score one for the non-American system of numbering floors. Around
here that question would be a lot easier, because you don't enter
on the first floor (unless you have a ladder).
--
Peter Moylan pe...@tesla.newcastle.edu.au
Stephen Wilcox, Mathematical Institute, Oxford, (2)73571
> "the", e.g. "I went shopping in Oxford Street". However, when I would use
> "the" is if the name of the street is actually the destination, as I
> assume is the case for the Santa Monica Freeway.
> In England it also sounds odd to drop the "street", particularly
> since half of our street names are also the names of other towns, so
> that 2nd sentence has a completely different implication from the 1st.
Of course neither of these rules applies in Oxford. For example.
High Street (official name) --> the High Street (common name) --> The High
(alternative name).
There are also The Broad and The Turl.
Your first rule doesn't apply where the name of a road is its destination. For
instance Oxford Road, Abingdon was always The Oxford Road because it goes to
Oxford.
--
Stephen Wilcox | Bear with me, please. I can't think
wil...@vax.oxford.ac.uk | of anything witty at the moment.
Heidi de Wet
>pn...@CERIS.Purdue.EDU (Paul Neel) writes:
>: We (U.S.) use hospital as a location rather than a condition. (i.e. "in
>: traction, in pain, etc.)
>
>We say "in the hospital" here in Canada, too. On a similar
>note, we also get "the flu".
Here in South Africa, that differs according to what the illness is.
You might get "the flu", or just "flu", and the same with measles;
you would always get "the plague", and "a cold"; but you would never
get "the mumps" or "the chickenpox". I don't know what system (if
any) defines the article, though.
--
---------- Heidi de Wet ------------- he...@ucthpx.uct.ac.za ----------
"...that liberal instinct which is so dear to historians that they lay
it out like a guideline through the unmapped forests of prejudice and
self-interest as though this line, and not the forest, is our history."
Peter Rauch
>John Colville writes:
>>I used it to mean "the next Friday" whereas she used it for the Friday of
>>next week.
>This has always been ambiguous to me, & I have to ask people which
>one they really mean if it's a matter of some appointment I have
> ... your meaning would be covered by the
>simple name of the future day of the week ("On Monday, ...").
- - - - - -
I guess I've been somewhere in between. If it's Saturday or Sunday, and
someone tells me about "next Friday"
I have assumed the immediate Friday coming. If it's Wed or Thurs and
they talk to me about "next Friday" I have assumed they meant a week
from Friday. For other days, I ask to which Friday they are referring.
Clearly, from all this discussion, I will always ask in the future......
Peter
Paul Neel
> In article <1993Sep7.1...@mprgate.mpr.ca> wa...@mprgate.mpr.ca (Marina Waltz) writes:
>
>>: We (U.S.) use hospital as a location rather than a condition. (i.e. "in
>>: traction, in pain, etc.)
>>
>>We say "in the hospital" here in Canada, too. On a similar
>>note, we also get "the flu".
>
> What if there's more than one hospital in town?
A hospital -- or be specific as: "St. Midas Hospital"
PN
Pierre Jelenc
Alan J Flavell <FLA...@cernvm.cern.ch> wrote:
>
>By the way (oops, I am drifting from the charter of a.u.e!) I believe
>there are countries where the trains "drive on the left" even though
>the rule of the road is drive on the right (Italy for one, I think).
I believe it is true of most countries, an inheritance from the British
engineers that started building railways through Europe in the 19th century.
All French trains run on the left, while the metro runs on the right,
since it was not considered a train but rather an extension of busses.
ObEnglish: How did the diverging train-related vocabularies evolve in
Britain and the US? Presumably the same British engineers were involved in
the initial construction of US railroads.
Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
rc...@panix.com
Evan Kirshenbaum
>wa...@mprgate.mpr.ca (Marina Waltz) writes:
>>We say "in the hospital" here in Canada, too. On a similar
>>note, we also get "the flu".
>
>Here in South Africa, that differs according to what the illness is.
>You might get "the flu", or just "flu", and the same with measles;
>you would always get "the plague", and "a cold"; but you would never
>get "the mumps" or "the chickenpox". I don't know what system (if
>any) defines the article, though.
Interesting. Here in the U.S. (the midwest and California, at least),
you get "the flu", "a cold", "a fever", "the mumps", and "the
measles", but "cancer", and "chicken pox". In the south, they get
"the vapors".
Latinate names ("diphtheria", "tuberculosis") seem not to take an
article, nor do diseases involving adjectives ("German measles",
"swine flu", "scarlet fever"), while common generic names for common
diseases do. "Cancer" may fall under the first rule (although I
believe I've seen 18c texts mentioning someone having "the cancer"),
while "chicken pox" and "smallpox" are instances of the second.
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories | This isn't good. I've seen good,
3500 Deer Creek Road, Building 26U | and it didn't look anything like
Palo Alto, CA 94304 | this.
| MST3K
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |
(415)857-7572
Peter Helyar
>In article <CCxt8...@ucdavis.edu> fzsh...@dale.ucdavis.edu (Greg Shenaut) writes:
>>
>> Do you also get _two months monday_ or _two years monday_? How about
>> _two days monday_ or _two hours monday_?
>>
>> Or _a week Christmas_, _an hour noon_ etc?
>>
>
> Ummm ? Two years monday can actually mean two years *ago* next monday ....
>eg. "We met two years monday", obviously this can't be confused with
>meeting in the future because of the use of the past tense.
>
>-grc.
>
Fascinating. There is indeed a sort of tense reversal going on here. I'm
unfamiliar with these usages because my construction uses the word "ago", as
in "two years ago monday". Is there a way to define the cut-off for the
tense-flip?
--
/^v^\ |There are no rehearsals - live like you mean it already.
( 0 0 ) |
uuuu U uuuu | pe...@crl.com (this is more reliable)
Pearlie was here | pe...@cyberden.sf.ca.us
Peter Helyar
>point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
>dichotomy in highway names. As far as I can tell, Southern California
>is the only place in the world where highways are prefaced be the article
>"the". An example: Instructions to get to Hollywood from Pasadena: "Take
(deletions)
>In the past ten years or so, though, there has been more of an effort to
>call highways by their numbers, i.e. the 110 instead of the Pasadena
>Freeway.
This is an interesting contrast with the Northern CA usage, at least here in
Marin County. We hear the article only in front of those highways which go
by names rather than numbers; thus, "take 101 North" but "take the Nimitz."
There is indeed a tendency for the use of the numbers here as well. I would
think that the use of the article is doomed here in the relatively near future.
David Wald
America is inconsistent in this, though. I'm right now on the third
floor, and three floors up from the ground level.
Then there was the dorm I stayed in in Madrid, which had room 110 on
the ground level, 210 on the first floor, 310 on the second... Now
*that* was confusing.
-David
--
============================================================================
David Wald wa...@theory.lcs.mit.edu
"Blessed are the peacocks, for they shall be called sonship of God"
-- Matt 5:9, from a faulty QuickVerse 2.0
============================================================================
Drew Lawson
ri...@mks.com (Rich Wales) writes:
>I moved to Kitchener, Ontario (west of Toronto) last December from Los
>Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
>unfamiliar to me before. An example:
>
> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>
>where "a week Monday" means "the Monday following the next Monday after
>today".
>
>The way I grew up expressing this concept (in California) was to say
>"a week from Monday". My first impression of "a week Monday" was that
>something was missing.
I'd like to add another example of being used to this as "Monday
week." However, I'm apparently the first to be familiar with this as
_US_ usage. I have the impression of it as outdated, mostly used by
those over 60 (among native USAians, that is).
The transition between "Monday week" and "a week Monday" (in either
direction) is a common enough linguistic shift that the two are
probably closely related.
As for your not hearing it in California, I've spent most of my time on
the east coast, so it may still be found there but not in the west.
I've noticed that language changes (particularly slang) in the US tend
to procede from west to east. When I finished high school in Virginia
and started college in Arizona, some people reacted to me as a voice
from the past. My current slang had disappeared a couple years
previously there.
--
Drew Lawson | Your future is managed / and your freedom's a joke
law...@acuson.com | You don't know the difference / as you put on the yoke
Glen Ecklund
>David R Tucker (d...@athena.mit.edu) wrote:
>>In article <1993Sep7.1...@yc.estec.esa.nl> ka...@yc8.yc.estec.esa.nl (Karen Hutchins) writes:
>>> "I went shopping in Oxford Street".
>>I go shopping *on* Oxford Street. I wouldn't want whatever was lying
>>about *in* Oxford Steet.
>I go shopping *in* Oxford Street. I wouldn't go shopping (or do anything
>except drive) *on* Oxford St, because of the traffic.
Here's another US/Non-NA difference.
To a USer, *in* Oxford Street sounds like "in the middle of the street".
To a Kiwi, *on* Oxford Street sounds like "on top of the street".
How about *along* or *beside* Oxford Street?
--
Glen Ecklund gl...@cs.wisc.edu (608) 262-1318 Office, 262-1204 Dept. Sec'y
Department of Computer Sciences 1210 W. Dayton St., Room 3355
University of Wisconsin, Madison Madison, Wis. 53706 U.S.A.
Benjamin J. Tilly
sc...@festival.ed.ac.uk (Scott Larnach) writes:
> >I have heard/read several sources (sorry, don't recall) over the years that
> >attribute our (U.S.) over use of "the" to the preponderance of Irish
> >speakers of English in our recent (since 1850) past.
>
> For what it's worth, in Scotland we use "the" like that. So I would
> say "My brother's in the hospital just now". This is despite the fact
> that there are quite a few hospitals in Edinburgh.
>
> It's also common to hear phrases like "We're away to the racing"
> rather than "We're going to the races".
>
Since people from Scotland were more influential that people from
Ireland in Canada, perhaps that explains why I would find neither of
these strange. (I grew up in Canada.) However I think that in the US,
the Irish would be more influential.
Question: Could the fact that "the" is used a lot in both Scotland and
Ireland have anything to do with Gaelic grammar? (Just a wild shot in
the dark.)
Ben Tilly
Peter Moylan
>In Spanish, one might also say "en quince dias" [in 15 days] to mean "in
>two weeks." I've never heard higher numbers used.
>Anyway, what's going on here?
Quite simply, it's a question of whether you count the zeroth
day. Except that, in French or Spanish, today is not the zeroth
day; it's the first day.
It's the same as that question about getting to the fifth
floor. In most of the English-speaking world, you get to the
fifth floor by going up five flights of stairs, and the
first floor is what you reach after going up one flight of
stairs. But in some countries you reach the first floor
without going up any stairs.
What's a little strange, though, is that there seems to be
no correlation between the two. That is, you can't predict
whether a country uses the "ground floor" concept just by
knowing whether there are 15 days in a fortnight.
--
Peter Moylan pe...@tesla.newcastle.edu.au
Paul L. Allen
> I moved to Kitchener, Ontario (west of Toronto) last December from Los
> Angeles. Since coming here, I've run into a linguistic usage that was
> unfamiliar to me before. An example:
>
> We'll have a company-wide meeting a week Monday.
>
> The way I grew up expressing this concept (in California) was to say
> "a week from Monday". My first impression of "a week Monday" was that
> something was missing.
> Can anyone else comment on this expression? Is it . . .
>
> .. . . a British usage that was inherited by Canada?
British usage would be `a week on Monday', although you also get `a week
Monday' where the `on' is omitted for brevity (like `see you Tuesday' instead
of `see you on Tuesday').
--Paul
Michael Helm
#>> >attribute our (U.S.) over use of "the" to the preponderance of Irish
#>> >speakers of English in our recent (since 1850) past.
#>Question: Could the fact that "the" is used a lot in both Scotland and
#>Ireland have anything to do with Gaelic grammar? (Just a wild shot in
Well, maybe, but it seems like over-explaining just a few variations
in speech patterns to reach for Gaelic. (Irish does seem to use the
article more, at least it often uses the article for abstract nouns
where I would not use the article in English.)
--
Peter Campbell Smith
Villani) wrote:
> One point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
> dichotomy in highway names. As far as I can tell, Southern California
> is the only place in the world where highways are prefaced be the article
> "the". An example: Instructions to get to Hollywood from Pasadena: "Take
> And of course the difference between these three:
> A) "I was driving down Santa Monica..."
Interesting. In my experience most Americans don't use 'the' for road
numbers - eg "Take I-90" or "Take route 66" - whereas in Britain we always
say "Take the A41".
_________________________________________________________
Peter Campbell Smith, Logica plc tel +44 71 637 9111
campb...@lish.logica.com fax +44 71 388 8848
A Potts
>> One point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
>> dichotomy in highway names. As far as I can tell, Southern California
>> is the only place in the world where highways are prefaced be the article
>> "the". An example: Instructions to get to Hollywood from Pasadena: "Take
>> the 110 South to the 101 North, get off on Sunset (Blvd.) and head west."
>> And of course the difference between these three:
>> A) "I was driving down Santa Monica..."
>Interesting. In my experience most Americans don't use 'the' for road
>numbers - eg "Take I-90" or "Take route 66" - whereas in Britain we always
>say "Take the A41".
Generally, is it not the case that all 'roads' should be preceded by
'the'? I know it's dangerous to make rules, but I always thought you
have 'the' with roads but not with streets. This maybe because roads
need adjectives, as opposed to streets and lanes which are just proper
nouns.
Stress though, seems fairly haphazard. With streets, almost everyone
stresses the first syllable of the qualifier, e.g. OX-ford street, BOND
street; but with roads, it its the word 'road' which gets the stress.
That's my experience, anyway!
Alistair James Potts,
Edinburgh
Alan J Flavell
ajp...@castle.ed.ac.uk (A Potts) writes:
>Generally, is it not the case that all 'roads' should be preceded by
>'the'? I know it's dangerous to make rules, but I always thought you
>have 'the' with roads but not with streets. This maybe because roads
>need adjectives, as opposed to streets and lanes which are just proper
>nouns.
"the road that leads to Oxford" (its name could be "Isis Avenue" for
all that I know). "Oxford Road" is a road whose name is "Oxford
Road", it may or may not go to Oxford (it probably does, but that
is not necessarily implied). E.g the Physics Dept in Manchester is
in Oxford Road - a road that certainly does not go to Oxford.
Here in Glasgow our local highway is "Great Western Road" (or A82,
or The A82, to its friends). I don't hear it called "the" G.W.Rd.,
although it might be referred to as "the Fort William road" if one
wanted to emphasise its ultimate destination. On the other hand
"The Great North Road" starts from London, so it looks as if usage
is variable and there is no absolute rule.
Alan
Karen Hutchins
|> Karen Hutchins (ka...@yc8.yc.estec.esa.nl) wrote:
|>
|> <stuff deleted>
|>
|> : I completely disagree, I think that normally it sounds better without the
|> : "the", e.g. "I went shopping in Oxford Street". However, when I would use
|> : "the" is if the name of the street is actually the destination, as I
|> : assume is the case for the Santa Monica Freeway.
|>
|> example, "I was driving down Oxford Street" but "I was driving down the
|> Old Kent Road". As to the reason for this, I have no idea. Is it
|> standard UK usage, or confined to London and the South East?
This sounds to me like you're actually supporting me - surely the Old Kent
Road is the road which used to go to Kent until they built a new one? (I
don't actually know if that's true or not!)
-Not speaking for ESTEC-
Drew Lawson
p...@math.psu.edu (Todd Andrew Simpson) writes:
>Another thing I noticed when I was in California is that "freeway" and
>"expressway" don't mean the same thing there. Where I grew up near
>Washington, both words meant "highway with no intersections or traffic
>lights", but it seems that in California only "freeway" has this
>meaning. I was on a road in Palo Alto called Central Expressway, and
>there were intersections and traffic lights (though not very many).
Yes, I've been making that adjustment since moving to the South Bay
(south end of San Francisco Bay). As near as I can tell, "expressway"
here means a major street with few or no curb cuts. So, while you have
to stop for lights on the Lawrence Expressway, you don't have people
pulling out of parking lots.
There _are_ some curb cuts, but I think the general structure is away
from them.
I'm just trying to learn that expressways are not necessarily fast ways
to get places, as the name implies to my former experiences.
Drew Lawson
>|> ad...@cco.caltech.edu (Adam Neil Villani) writes...
>|> I think what sounds a little weird is the use of "the" with a number.
>|> If a freeway has a name, it's not uncommon to use "the", and sometimes
>|> would sound funny without it. "I was driving down Santa Monica Freeway",
>|> for instance.
>
>I completely disagree, I think that normally it sounds better without the
>"the", e.g. "I went shopping in Oxford Street". However, when I would use
>"the" is if the name of the street is actually the destination, as I
>assume is the case for the Santa Monica Freeway.
An interesting difference in preposition usage. In much of the US, you
would have been shopping _on_ Oxford Street. I doubt either makes more
sense implicitly that the other.
>Something I found a bit odd in Nova Scotia was the fact that people drop
>the second part of the name, i.e. "I went shopping in Oxford". I think
>that's mostly because in Halifax there are so few streets anyway.
This is fairly common in many parts of North America. Here (South San
Francisco Bay area), I have trouble finding out what the last part is
because most of the signs omit it as well. "It's on San Antonio." You
don't really NEED to know that it is San Antonio Blvd. (I think), so I
suppose there isn't a real problem, but it sounds very strange at
times.
>I
>can only think of two duplications where the second word is necessary to
>distinguish between e.g. Young St and Young Ave.
Mountain View, California has a Central Avenue and Central Expressway,
and people still say "Central." Of course, Central Avenue is a very
minor street (about a block from Central Extressway).
Drew Lawson
d...@athena.mit.edu (David R Tucker) writes:
>In article <1993Sep7.1...@yc.estec.esa.nl> ka...@yc8.yc.estec.esa.nl (Karen Hutchins) writes:
> In Britain we use the numbers with a "the", but perhaps that's because
> our numbers are meaningful, i.e. everyone knows that the M1 is a motorway
> so you don't have to say "take the M1 motorway", and likewise the A1 and
> the B1.
I think the sound is different, in part, because "M1" isn't a number.
>"The 128" and "the I-95" sound very weird. (In Maine, the latter is
>called "the Interstate," because it's the only one that goes there.)
I agree. I hadn't picked up on the noted tendency to report traffic
conditions on "the 101" instead of "101" or "route 101".
In Charleston, SC, I-26 is often refered to as "the I."
Paul Neel
> ... As near as I can tell, "expressway" here means a major street with
> few or no curb cuts. ...
In my lifetime (60+ years), the terms have evolved. When I was young,
"freeway" was a free road, as opposed to a "Tollway" and an "expressway"
was a road constructed to be the most direct (shortest) route (hence faster)
between two points. The terms have been in flux for the past 20-30 years
(and highly colloquialized) and I suppose will eventually become synonymous.
PN
Colin Kendall 6842
>
>This sounds to me like you're actually supporting me - surely the Old Kent
>Road is the road which used to go to Kent until they built a new one?
And undoubtedly still does, unless they purposely moved it to encourage
people to use the new one.
John Perkins
>From article <1993Sep6.0...@cc.umontreal.ca>, by co...@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Michael Coady):
>> In article <CCw9w...@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Benjamin...@dartmouth.edu (Benjamin J. Tilly) writes:
>>>In article <1993Sep5.0...@mks.com>
>
>> Let me throw in a couple more. I've heard that Americans
>> don't use "in hospital" as in "My mother is in hospital", but that
>> they insist on inserting the pesky "the" word before hospital.
>
>We (U.S.) use hospital as a location rather than a condition. (i.e. "in
>traction, in pain, etc.)
>
So you probably use phrases like:
"He was convicted and sent to the prison"
"My daughter goes to the school every day"
:-)
John.
P.S. "e.g." would be much better than "i.e." above.
John Perkins
>
>By the way (oops, I am drifting from the charter of a.u.e!) I believe
>there are countries where the trains "drive on the left" even though
>the rule of the road is drive on the right (Italy for one, I think).
>
It's always struck me as curious that while river boats tend to
"drive on the right" in Britain (with steering wheels on the left)
in America they tend to "drive on the left" (with steering wheels
on the right). In both cases, this is, of course, opposite to
the road convention. I wonder why.
John.
John Perkins
>
>In fact, it *was* this thread about Monday a week that caught my attention.
>I have often wondered why in Spanish, for example, one says "de manana en ocho"
>[a week from tomorrow] or literally "from tomorrow in eight", and in English
>one always refers to *seven* days from whenever as being a week from whenever.
>
>In Spanish, one might also say "en quince dias" [in 15 days] to mean "in
>two weeks." I've never heard higher numbers used.
>
>Anyway, what's going on here?
>
Yes, and don't the French say "huit jours" for a week?
John.
Paul Neel
>>traction, in pain, etc.)
>
> So you probably use phrases like:
>
> "He was convicted and sent to the prison"
> "My daughter goes to the school every day"
Some in my youth would (Quaker). However, in these applications "prison" and
"school" come closer to being a state of being or condition and I would
probably not use "the".
There are always exceptions and colloquial usage.
;-) Paul
eger...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
but not to a place called North Circular... (Although I think your
rule probably applies 99% of the time, in fact.)
Speaking of which... isn't this thread becoming a bit circular too?
Kari
Heidi de Wet
>America is inconsistent in this, though. I'm right now on the third
>floor, and three floors up from the ground level.
>
>Then there was the dorm I stayed in in Madrid, which had room 110 on
>the ground level, 210 on the first floor, 310 on the second... Now
>*that* was confusing.
Luxury! ;-) UCT campus is built on the side of Table Mountain, so the
buildings are at different levels. However, floors at a similar level
tend to be numbered the same, which makes things much easier when the
buildings are connected by walkways. It means that I can get to my
office by entering the complex at the first, second, third or fifth
floor, depending on which direction I come from.
The Chemistry building is an exception. Their ground floor is level
with the ground at the back of the building; one often enters at the
front - "road level" - and goes up via "mezzanine" and "lower ground"
before getting to "ground"! (I wonder how they number the rooms?)
--
---------- Heidi de Wet ------------- he...@ucthpx.uct.ac.za ----------
"...that liberal instinct which is so dear to historians that they lay
it out like a guideline through the unmapped forests of prejudice and
self-interest as though this line, and not the forest, is our history."
Michael Jennings
>In article <CCy3H...@cse.psu.edu>
> p...@math.psu.edu (Todd Andrew Simpson) writes:
>
>>Another thing I noticed when I was in California is that "freeway" and
>>"expressway" don't mean the same thing there. Where I grew up near
>>Washington, both words meant "highway with no intersections or traffic
>>lights", but it seems that in California only "freeway" has this
>>meaning. I was on a road in Palo Alto called Central Expressway, and
>>there were intersections and traffic lights (though not very many).
>
>
>Yes, I've been making that adjustment since moving to the South Bay
>(south end of San Francisco Bay). As near as I can tell, "expressway"
>here means a major street with few or no curb cuts. So, while you have
>to stop for lights on the Lawrence Expressway, you don't have people
>pulling out of parking lots.
>
>There _are_ some curb cuts, but I think the general structure is away
>from them.
>
>I'm just trying to learn that expressways are not necessarily fast ways
>to get places, as the name implies to my former experiences.
>
both used to mean "highway with no intersections or traffic lights".
Here in Britain, the word is 'motorway' and neither freeway or
expressway are used. (This illustrates a general trend in Australia.
Traditionally we have used British words for things, and we almost
invariably use British spelling. However, for concepts that are
comparatively new (post WWII) we usually use the American word rather
than the British word. Whilst this isn't even slightly surprising,
it is interesting).
Michael.
Ivan A Derzhanski
>Question: Could the fact that "the" is used a lot in both Scotland and
>Ireland have anything to do with Gaelic grammar? (Just a wild shot in
>the dark.)
It might in theory. There being no indefinite article in Gaelic, the
lack of article marks an indefinite noun phrase, not a generic one as
in English. So (lit.) `in hospital' means `in a hospital'. Does one
want to avoid saying that, I wonder?
--
`Maister, we're no jist sure aboot the meanin o yer story' (The Glasgow
Ivan A Derzhanski (i...@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; i...@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu) Gospel)
* Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Lorne Epp
> In article <26e591...@gap.caltech.edu>, ad...@cco.caltech.edu (Adam Neil
> Villani) wrote:
>
>> One point that pops up frequently on ca.driving is the "the/no the"
>> dichotomy in highway names. As far as I can tell, Southern California
>> is the only place in the world where highways are prefaced be the article
>> "the". An example: Instructions to get to Hollywood from Pasadena: "Take
>> the 110 South to the 101 North, get off on Sunset (Blvd.) and head west."
>> And of course the difference between these three:
>> A) "I was driving down Santa Monica..."
>
> Interesting. In my experience most Americans don't use 'the' for road
> numbers - eg "Take I-90" or "Take route 66" - whereas in Britain we always
> say "Take the A41".
In Canada we have "the Trans-Canada Highway", commonly referred to as
"the Trans-Canada" or, occasionally, "Highway One".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Lorne Epp e...@mala.bc.ca
Paul L. Allen
> In Britain we use the numbers with a "the", but perhaps that's because
> our numbers are meaningful, i.e. everyone knows that the M1 is a motorway
> so you don't have to say "take the M1 motorway", and likewise the A1 and
> the B1.
But `M' is not a number...
> Something I found a bit odd in Nova Scotia was the fact that people drop
> the second part of the name, i.e. "I went shopping in Oxford". I think
> that's mostly because in Halifax there are so few streets anyway. I
> can only think of two duplications where the second word is necessary to
> distinguish between e.g. Young St and Young Ave. Whereas in a city in
> Britain there are liable to be dozens of variations on the theme. Is
> that true anywhere else?
In England you're likely to find Foo St and Foo Ave in different parts of the
town, and those will be the only two. In Scotland you're likely to find
Foo St, Foo St Wynd, Foo Ave, Foo Ave Gardens and half a dozen other variants
within spitting distance of each other. Something to do with Scots
parsimony perhaps?
--Paul (A sassenach in Scotland)
Gary Sloane
> In article <CCy3H...@cse.psu.edu>
> p...@math.psu.edu (Todd Andrew Simpson) writes:
>
> >Another thing I noticed when I was in California is that "freeway" and
> >"expressway" don't mean the same thing there. Where I grew up near
> >Washington, both words meant "highway with no intersections or traffic
> >lights", but it seems that in California only "freeway" has this
> >meaning. I was on a road in Palo Alto called Central Expressway, and
> >there were intersections and traffic lights (though not very many).
>
Palo Alto. :)
>
> Yes, I've been making that adjustment since moving to the South Bay
> (south end of San Francisco Bay). As near as I can tell, "expressway"
> here means a major street with few or no curb cuts. So, while you have
> to stop for lights on the Lawrence Expressway, you don't have people
> pulling out of parking lots.
>
In this area, "expressway" is used only as part of compound proper noun,
not as a generic category; it never takes the definite article. I've never
heard a local say "the Lawrence [or the Central or the Oregon] Expressway".
It would sound as peculiar as omitting the article from "the New York State Thruway" [not sure about Newspeakish spelling] or "the Long Island Expressway".
Has anybody been here (on the San Francisco Penninsula) long enough to
verify whether these somewhat-limited-access highways were built and named
before the freeways (101 and 280) came through, as I would guess?
> There _are_ some curb cuts, but I think the general structure is away
> from them.
>
> I'm just trying to learn that expressways are not necessarily fast ways
> to get places, as the name implies to my former experiences.
>
> --
> Drew Lawson | Your future is managed / and your freedom's a joke
> law...@acuson.com | You don't know the difference / as you put on the yoke
---
Gary Sloane slo...@adoc.xerox.com (415) 813-6767
"ERRATA: For `errata' read `erratum'"
Charles Bishop
>In article 29...@acuson.com, law...@acuson.com (Drew Lawson) writes:
>> In article <CCy3H...@cse.psu.edu>
>> p...@math.psu.edu (Todd Andrew Simpson) writes:
>>
>> >Another thing I noticed when I was in California is that "freeway" and
>> >"expressway" don't mean the same thing there. Where I grew up near
>> >Washington, both words meant "highway with no intersections or traffic
>> >lights", but it seems that in California only "freeway" has this
>> >meaning. I was on a road in Palo Alto called Central Expressway, and
>> >there were intersections and traffic lights (though not very many).
>>
>Sorry, Central Expressway is called Alma Street when it passes through
>Palo Alto. :)
>>
>> Yes, I've been making that adjustment since moving to the South Bay
>> (south end of San Francisco Bay). As near as I can tell, "expressway"
>> here means a major street with few or no curb cuts. So, while you have
>> to stop for lights on the Lawrence Expressway, you don't have people
>> pulling out of parking lots.
>>
>
>In this area, "expressway" is used only as part of compound proper noun,
>not as a generic category; it never takes the definite article. I've never
>heard a local say "the Lawrence [or the Central or the Oregon] Expressway".
>It would sound as peculiar as omitting the article from "the New York State Thruway" [not sure about Newspeakish spelling] or "the Long Island Expressway".
>
>Has anybody been here (on the San Francisco Penninsula) long enough to
>verify whether these somewhat-limited-access highways were built and named
>before the freeways (101 and 280) came through, as I would guess?
My recollection (read guess) is that the 101 FWY was built first before the
area was built up due to silicon influx and that the expressways were built
when they found how mnay people were going to be living there. Dunno
about the 280.
cbi...@netcom.com email requests for information on the P.G. Wodehouse
Society promptly answered.
Alan J Rosenthal
>wa...@mprgate.mpr.ca (Marina Waltz) writes:
>>We say "in the hospital" here in Canada, too. On a similar
>>note, we also get "the flu".
>
>What if there's more than one hospital in town?
It doesn't matter. "In the hospital" is still indefinite and could refer to
any hospital. Other indefinite "the"s:
* I have to go to the bathroom.
* She was suffering from a pain in the forearm.
* The tyrannosaurus eats other dinosaurs. (cf. "the tyrannosaurus is
a mighty beast", which is refers to the species and thus could be
claimed to be definite)
* The book which begins with the word "squid" is best left unread.
Okay, go on, tear me to shreds.
Wes Groleau x1240 C73-8
>In article <CCy3H...@cse.psu.edu>
> p...@math.psu.edu (Todd Andrew Simpson) writes:
>>Another thing I noticed when I was in California is that "freeway" and
>
>........ trying to learn that expressways are not necessarily fast ways
>to get places, as the name implies to my former experiences.
In Los Angeles, neither a "freeway", nor an "expressway" is a fast way to get
places. Nor is the "Rapid Transit District" for that matter. To get somewhere
fast in L.A. the two easiest options are (1) travel between 1:00 and 4:00 A.M.
or (2) use the sidewalk.
Peter Campbell Smith
Ecklund) wrote:
... stuff about in/on Oxford Street ...
> Here's another US/Non-NA difference.
>
> To a USer, *in* Oxford Street sounds like "in the middle of the street".
> To a Kiwi, *on* Oxford Street sounds like "on top of the street".
>
> How about *along* or *beside* Oxford Street?
Two US (Indiana) road signs which caused me some thought:
'Do not pass'. Am I supposed to wait by the sign until someone tells me I
can now pass along the road?
'Do not park within 15 feet of pavement'. You mean I'm meant to park in
the middle of the road?
PS on the Oxford Street discussion: US-ers often (but Brits never) drop
'Street'. So in UK-speak we can say 'Bill lives in Oxford Street' or 'Bill
lives in Oxford' (meaning the city thereof) without ambiguity. The US
equivalents of 'Bill lives on Oxford' and 'Bill lives in Oxford' are
presumably more baffling to foreigners but equally unambiguous.
Loren I. Petrich
>In article <1993Sep9.1...@acuson.com> law...@acuson.com (Drew Lawson) writes:
: In article <CCy3H...@cse.psu.edu>
: p...@math.psu.edu (Todd Andrew Simpson) writes:
: >Another thing I noticed when I was in California is that "freeway" and
: >"expressway" don't mean the same thing there. ....
: ........ trying to learn that expressways are not necessarily fast ways
: to get places, as the name implies to my former experiences.
>In Los Angeles, neither a "freeway", nor an "expressway" is a fast way to get
>places.
I guess that's how it turns out in practice, even if multilane
stopsign- and signal-free roads are in theory the fastest.
... Nor is the "Rapid Transit District" for that matter.
That was formed sometime around 1970 or so, and it was
inspired by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District of the San Francisco
area. The latter agency, whose name is abbreviated to "BART"
(pronounced like the name of the famous Simpsons' kid), does actually
live up to its name, even if it is something of an underachiever :-).
In its early years, the system was plagued with mechanical problems
and computer failures, and some exasperated commuters named it "Bay
Area Reckless Transit".
However, the Southern California Rapid Transit District's
plans for fast trains comparable to BART's never got anywhere for a
long time.
As to fun transit-agency names, consider Toronto's Government
of Ontario Transit, shortened to GO Transit. Or how Boston's MBTA gets
called the "T". And some people don't think that Philadelphia's SEPTA
has a very pleasant-sounding name.
I once commented that the Washington Metro could have been
named "Washington Area Rapid Transit", or WART, and I got the response
that BART could have been named "Frisco Area Rapid Transit", or FART.
... To get somewhere
>fast in L.A. the two easiest options are (1) travel between 1:00 and 4:00 A.M.
>or (2) use the sidewalk.
Or ride a bicycle.
--
/Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
/l...@s1.gov
Michael Helm
#> As to fun transit-agency names, consider Toronto's Government
#>of Ontario Transit, shortened to GO Transit. Or how Boston's MBTA gets
And in Dublin, we have the Dublin Area Rapid Transit, or the DART.
--
eger...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
I heard (a few years ago) there was some speculation about what the
proposed DART line to Finglas would be called...
Kari
Wes Groleau x1240 C73-8
>In article <CDCM5...@crdnns.crd.ge.com> gro...@e7sa.crd.ge.com (Wes Groleau x1240 C73-8) writes:
>... Nor is the "Rapid Transit District" for that matter.
> That was formed sometime around 1970 or so, and it was
>inspired by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District of the San Francisco
> However, the Southern California Rapid Transit District's
>plans for fast trains comparable to BART's never got anywhere for a
>long time.
I moved to New York State nearly ten years ago. When I left L.A.,
the "Rapid Transit District" had NOTHING to do with trains, only buses.
And those got me from Long Beach to Burbank less than seven hours!
Bernd Reh (DA Drechsel)
Well, if you don't know how to do something just look how it is done in
other countries (yes, I know all you Americans out there; a really tough
quest for you) and I can tell you as far as I experienced it in German,
French and British English it's "THE A8". So it seems that it is YOU
again who makes the exception as it was earlier in this Newsgroup with
colour/color :-)
Bernd
--
As Prof. Higgins put it: "Americans? They haven't used
it [the English language] for years !!
Bernd Reh (Student an der Universit"at Kaiserslautern)
e-mail : r...@rhrk.uni-kl.de
snail-mail: Marie-Juchacz-Str. 16 // 67663 Kaiserslautern // Germany