Disproven disproved?
David Picton
discovered something which struck me as very odd, so I thought I'd
start a new post about it.
In a Web survey for the past participle of disprove, the results were:
24% disproven
76% disproved
Although 'disproved' is still the majority form, 'disproven' isn't
uncommon. In view of the current popularity of 'proven', that's not
surprising. I would have expected that if something can be proven or
unproven, it can be disproven.
However ...
It's a challenge to find 'disproven' in any normal-sized dictionary,
although it's in the OED and the NSOED and the references show that it
was used in the 19th century. A OneLook search produced only one
dictionary mentioning 'disproven' as the past participle! No mention
either in the current version of the Concise Oxford (although it was
in the 1946 edition). Does anyone have an explanation for the
omission?
Django Cat
wrote:
In Scottish Law there's a possible verdict 'not proven'...
DC
Martin Ambuhl
> It's a challenge to find 'disproven' in any normal-sized dictionary,
> although it's in the OED and the NSOED and the references show that it
> was used in the 19th century.
If you were to check the MWCD11, you would find that a search on words
beginning with "disprove" includes "disproven." The entry to which it
points does not have the literal term "disproven" in it, however.
What's happening, you might ask. The answer is simple. Anyone with an
ounce of sense knows that "disprove" is a regular formation from "dis-"
and "prove." The MWCD11 entry for "prove" does have "proven." In the
same way, COD10 offers no principal parts for "disprove" but does for
"prove." Dictionary editors must assume some level of literacy for
their readers; their assumed level seems to be a bit high for DP.
Mike Lyle
[...]
> although it's in the OED and the NSOED and the references show that it
> was used in the 19th century. A OneLook search produced only one
> dictionary mentioning 'disproven' as the past participle! No mention
> either in the current version of the Concise Oxford (although it was
> in the 1946 edition). Does anyone have an explanation for the
> omission?
Yep: the poor sods on no-way-generous-compared-with-plumbers hourly
rates have to draw lines somewhere. Don't underestimate the economics
of the thing: I'd very much like those who do the dictionaries to be a
kind of dedicated priesthood or Government Department, but I'm here to
tell you they aren't. 'Disproven' is a quirky usage in educated modern
English (though, by God's wounds, if was good enough for Jowett it's
plenty good enough for me), so just sympathize if they shoved the
felt-tip through it instead of through something else.
Even with the present trend to make "small" dictionaries bigger than
their commercial competitors to give an illusion (and it is an
illusion) of value for money, there are length limits. I'd agree with
you on some omissions and some inclusions; but you'd very likely think
me totally unreasonable on others, so we're back down to the editor's
time-pressed judgement.
I don't like it a bit, but dictionary-making is a business, just as it
was for Dr Johnson. "...the patron, and the jail."
Mike.
Brian.Farrelly
>
> djpi...@bigmailbox.net (David Picton) wrote in message news:<2ad9e934.0406...@posting.google.com>...
> > discovered something which struck me as very odd, so I thought I'd
> > start a new post about it.
> >
> > In a Web survey for the past participle of disprove, the results were:
> >
> > 24% disproven
> > 76% disproved
>
> natural a la "gotten", "written", "eaten", etc. Even Alicia Keys uses
> the word "loven" to constrast with "fallen". It works! ALL these are
> different from the simple past tense form. However, the damn
> frog-eating Brits decided that they were gonna be ever gayer (NOT more
> gay) than usual and change "proven" to "proved", "gotten" to "got",
> "fallen" to "falled", "loven" to "loved", etc, etc. "Have you gotten
> the gift yet?" sounds INCREDIBLY antiquated to the Brits, but to us
> normal Americans it sounds better than the Ebonic-sounding "have you
> got it yet?". I'd use "disproven" more often than "proven". The
> survey results are screwed because the damn Brits, Australians,
> Africans, Hindus, and Afghans who speak English have butchered our
> mother tongue. "Disproved" is alright, but "disproven" is more
> correct.
>
I say, jolly good letter old chap, but we haven't changed 'fallen' to
'falled' and as far as I know we're not even working on it.
Brian
--
mailto:Brian.F...@nho.hydro.com Norsk Hydro Research Centre
phone +47 55 99 68 74 ((( Postboks 7190
fax +47 55 99 69 70 2oooS N-5020 Bergen
home +47 55 13 78 49 HYDRO Norway
David Picton
Maybe that's the view of the dictionary compilers. They're all
waiting to see if 'disproven' catches on to the same extent as
'proven', and consider that the jury is still out at this stage. As
soon as one dictionary breaks ranks and passes a "not guilty" verdict,
the rest will follow!
David Picton
> djpi...@bigmailbox.net (David Picton) wrote in message news:<2ad9e934.0406...@posting.google.com>...
> [...]
> > It's a challenge to find 'disproven' in any normal-sized dictionary,
> > although it's in the OED and the NSOED and the references show that it
> > was used in the 19th century. A OneLook search produced only one
> > dictionary mentioning 'disproven' as the past participle! No mention
> > either in the current version of the Concise Oxford (although it was
> > in the 1946 edition). Does anyone have an explanation for the
> > omission?
>
> Yep: the poor sods on no-way-generous-compared-with-plumbers hourly
> rates have to draw lines somewhere. Don't underestimate the economics
> of the thing: I'd very much like those who do the dictionaries to be a
> kind of dedicated priesthood or Government Department, but I'm here to
> tell you they aren't. 'Disproven' is a quirky usage in educated modern
> English (though, by God's wounds, if was good enough for Jowett it's
> plenty good enough for me), so just sympathize if they shoved the
> felt-tip through it instead of through something else.
I think that's what happened. Before it became popular in the US (and
latterly in the UK), 'proven' was labelled archaic/literary/Scottish
but the less-common 'disproven' got the felt-tip treatment. It's an
accident of history. Although I have to say that it's the omission of
'disproven' which looks quirky now!
> Even with the present trend to make "small" dictionaries bigger than
> their commercial competitors to give an illusion (and it is an
> illusion) of value for money, there are length limits.
Not only dictionaries. Car manufacturers have long suffered from this
size inflation syndrome. I recall a recent TV advertisement for the
VW Polo. All the versions were shown in quick succession, and it
looked as if someone was pumping up the car through the exhaust pipe!
Eventually the 'small' models become medium-sized and new, smaller
models must be launched to plug the gap in the market. I guess that
the same thing is happening with dictionaries...
DE781
WOW! I didn't even realise this was cross-posted to other British
groups; I SHOULD HAVE known that the original poster was a Brit, as
anyone who would question the legitimasy of "proven" must be. It's
good to hear you Brits are retroverting towards use of the proper past
participles. If only I could convince you all that "I'm being well"
is standard and acceptable (none of the AMERICANS at this board seem
to have any issues with it)...and then there's that whole "likely
ain't an adverb" shit! OY! They're pulling our language down the
shitter! I mean, honestly, have you ever seen Ali G? They can't even
speak ghetto or Ebonics correctly!
eromlignod
I see nowhere in this thread (my appologies if I missed it) where
anyone has pointed out that "disproved" and "disproven" are of
different forms and are both necessary for proper sentence structure.
Generally, verbs with "-en" are conjugated with linking verbs. This
is grammar-school grammar.
You would say, "I have disproven his theory", or "His theory has been
disproven", since "have" and "been" are linking verbs. You would NOT
say, "I have disproved his theory".
You would say, "Yesterday I disproved his theory", since there is no
linking verb. You would NOT say, "Yesterday I disproven his theory".
Most verbs in English have these forms. Am I missing something here?
Don
djpi...@bigmailbox.net (David Picton) wrote in message news:<2ad9e934.0406...@posting.google.com>...
Donna Richoux
[Post moved to bottom to preserve chronological order]
>
> djpi...@bigmailbox.net (David Picton) wrote
> > After my strode/stridden thread turned into a proved/proven thread, I
> > discovered something which struck me as very odd, so I thought I'd
> > start a new post about it.
> >
> > In a Web survey for the past participle of disprove, the results were:
> >
> > 24% disproven
> > 76% disproved
> >
> > Although 'disproved' is still the majority form, 'disproven' isn't
> > uncommon. In view of the current popularity of 'proven', that's not
> > surprising. I would have expected that if something can be proven or
> > unproven, it can be disproven.
> >
> > However ...
> >
> > It's a challenge to find 'disproven' in any normal-sized dictionary,
> > although it's in the OED and the NSOED and the references show that it
> > was used in the 19th century. A OneLook search produced only one
> > dictionary mentioning 'disproven' as the past participle! No mention
> > either in the current version of the Concise Oxford (although it was
> > in the 1946 edition). Does anyone have an explanation for the
> > omission?
> I'm getting in late on this discussion.
>
> I see nowhere in this thread (my appologies if I missed it) where
> anyone has pointed out that "disproved" and "disproven" are of
> different forms and are both necessary for proper sentence structure.
>
> Generally, verbs with "-en" are conjugated with linking verbs. This
> is grammar-school grammar.
>
> You would say, "I have disproven his theory", or "His theory has been
> disproven", since "have" and "been" are linking verbs. You would NOT
> say, "I have disproved his theory".
>
> You would say, "Yesterday I disproved his theory", since there is no
> linking verb. You would NOT say, "Yesterday I disproven his theory".
>
> Most verbs in English have these forms. Am I missing something here?
Well, yes, a little. The original post did limit the discussion to only
one tense of the verb: the past participle. David Picton said:
>> In a Web survey for the past participle of the verb
So that's your "have" or "has" form. Running a test myself with Google,
I get:
"has disproven" 889
"has disproved" 3950
which is the same sort of result David reported. A ratio of 4:l is
fairly close, in terms of usage; it's not as frequent as, say,
"color/colour," but it's about as common as "alot" and "supercede".
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Raymond S. Wise
news:5778ec55.04061...@posting.google.com...
> I'm getting in late on this discussion.
>
> I see nowhere in this thread (my appologies if I missed it) where
> anyone has pointed out that "disproved" and "disproven" are of
> different forms and are both necessary for proper sentence structure.
>
> Generally, verbs with "-en" are conjugated with linking verbs. This
> is grammar-school grammar.
>
> You would say, "I have disproven his theory", or "His theory has been
> disproven", since "have" and "been" are linking verbs. You would NOT
> say, "I have disproved his theory".
>
> You would say, "Yesterday I disproved his theory", since there is no
> linking verb. You would NOT say, "Yesterday I disproven his theory".
>
> Most verbs in English have these forms. Am I missing something here?
>
> Don
Yes, the fact that "disproven" is such a rare usage that it is not shown in
most dictionaries.
The form you refer to in your post is the past participle. In a regular verb
such as "walk" a dictionary would not ordinarily show the past participle
because it would be formed from the verb in a regular, thus predictable,
manner: The past particle of "walk" is "walked," but "walked" would not
appear in a dictionary under the entry for "walk." For irregular verbs, it
is necessary for a dictionary to show the past participle. Thus, for the
verb "see," *Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary,* 11th ed., refers to
(ASCII IPA is used in the following to represent the pronunciation)
"Inflected Form: *saw* /'sA/ ; *seen* /'sin/ ; *see·ing* /'siIN/."
The verb "prove" has both regular and irregular variants, and a dictionary
must demonstrate these. Thus, in MWCD11 you find, under the entry for that
verb, "Inflected Form: *proved* ; *proved* _or_ *prov·en* /'pruv@n/,
_Britain also_ /'proU/- ; *prov·ing* /'pruvIN/." However, "disprove" is
entirely regular, and as a result, a dictionary would no more illustrate the
past participle for that verb than it would illustrate an ending in "s" or
"es" for a noun which formed a regular plural. Thus, no inflected forms are
shown in the MWCD11 entry for "disprove."
It looks to me as if "disproven" has always been a rare usage, given that
*The Century Dictionary,* a multi-volume American dictionary of 1895 shows
"proven" (although its editors disapprove of the variant), but not
"disproven":
From
www.century-dictionary.com
[quote]
*prove* /pruv/, _v._ ; pret. _proved,_ pp. _proved_ (sometimes incorrectly
_proven_)[....]
[...]
*proven* /'pruvn-/, _pp._ [An improper form of
_proved,_ with _-en_1, suffix of strong participles,
for orig. _-ed_2.] Proved : an improper form,
lately growing in frequency, by imitation of
the Scotch use in "not proven."
The evidence is voluminous and conclusive, and by com-
mon consent a verdict of _proven_ is returned.
_H. Spencer,_ Social Statics, p. 422.
*Not proven,* in _Scots law,_ a verdict rendered by a jury in
a criminal case when the evidence is insufficient to justify
conviction, yet strong enough to warrant grave suspicion
of guilt.
[end quote]
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
John Hall
eromlignod <eroml...@aol.com> writes:
>Generally, verbs with "-en" are conjugated with linking verbs. This
>is grammar-school grammar.
>
>You would say, "I have disproven his theory", or "His theory has been
>disproven", since "have" and "been" are linking verbs. You would NOT
>say, "I have disproved his theory".
You might not in America. In the UK, I think that we would be more
likely to use the third form than either of the first two.
>You would say, "Yesterday I disproved his theory", since there is no
>linking verb. You would NOT say, "Yesterday I disproven his theory".
Agreed.
--
John Hall
"Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history
that man can never learn anything from history."
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Einde O'Callaghan
> I'm getting in late on this discussion.
>
> I see nowhere in this thread (my appologies if I missed it) where
> anyone has pointed out that "disproved" and "disproven" are of
> different forms and are both necessary for proper sentence structure.
>
> Generally, verbs with "-en" are conjugated with linking verbs. This
> is grammar-school grammar.
>
> You would say, "I have disproven his theory", or "His theory has been
> disproven", since "have" and "been" are linking verbs. You would NOT
> say, "I have disproved his theory".
>
> You would say, "Yesterday I disproved his theory", since there is no
> linking verb. You would NOT say, "Yesterday I disproven his theory".
>
> Most verbs in English have these forms. Am I missing something here?
>
"disproven2 was used as a past tense. The debate is about the use of
"disproved" and "disproven" as past participles.
Several posters have shown that both forms are used and these usages
documented in various dictionaries.
I suspect that your grammar-school grammar has become a bit garbled in
your memory. ;-)
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
meirman
O'Callaghan <einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> posted:
This isn't really about grammar, in my meaning of the word. It's only
about one verb and what its 3rd principle part is.
Even in the sum of all the English classes I've taken, we certainly
didn't discuss every single verb. I had never even considered
disprove before and was surprised to hear that 'has been disproven" is
not approved. (or approven!) It seems to me if -en is good enough
for prove, it's good enough for disprove, so I would probably still
use it. (But not "approven". :) )
>Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
s/ meirman If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
Baltimore 20 years
Martin Ambuhl
> I'm getting in late on this discussion.
>
> I see nowhere in this thread (my appologies if I missed it) where
> anyone has pointed out that "disproved" and "disproven" are of
> different forms and are both necessary for proper sentence structure.
>
> Generally, verbs with "-en" are conjugated with linking verbs. This
> is grammar-school grammar.
This is wrong and even if true quite beside the point.
> You would say, "I have disproven his theory", or "His theory has been
> disproven", since "have" and "been" are linking verbs. You would NOT
> say, "I have disproved his theory".
Bullshit. "Disproved" and "disproven" are both available as the past
participle. Either can be used in any of your three example sentences
above.
> You would say, "Yesterday I disproved his theory", since there is no
> linking verb. You would NOT say, "Yesterday I disproven his theory".
So what? This example is of the simple past tense; the forms of the
past participle are completely irrelevant to it.
> Most verbs in English have these forms. Am I missing something here?
You are missing any understanding of the question or of the discussion.
Other than that, it is only rudimentary grammar you have no grasp of.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>Django Cat <nos...@please.com> wrote in message
>news:<opr9q27g...@news.freenetname.co.uk>...
>
>> >
>> > In Scottish Law there's a possible verdict 'not proven'...
>> >
>
>Pronounced "not pro-ven" (rather than "not proo-ven"), I believe. Just to
>add interest....
Does anyone pronounce it "proo-ven"?
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Dylan Nicholson
news:40d392e9...@news.saix.net...
> On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:21:41 +0100, "Mike Mooney"
<m.j.m...@bradford.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> >Django Cat <nos...@please.com> wrote in message
> >news:<opr9q27g...@news.freenetname.co.uk>...
> >
> >> >
> >> > In Scottish Law there's a possible verdict 'not proven'...
> >> >
> >
> >Pronounced "not pro-ven" (rather than "not proo-ven"), I believe. Just to
> >add interest....
>
> Does anyone pronounce it "proo-ven"?
>
m-w.com gives 'prO-v&n (to rhyme with beethoven) as a British pronunication.
www.wordreference.com (Collins) only gives proo-ven. Is 'prO-v&n used in
S.Af then?
Michael West
> On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:21:41 +0100, "Mike Mooney" <m.j.m...@bradford.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> Django Cat <nos...@please.com> wrote in message
>> news:<opr9q27g...@news.freenetname.co.uk>...
>>
>>>>
>>>> In Scottish Law there's a possible verdict 'not proven'...
>>>>
>>
>> Pronounced "not pro-ven" (rather than "not proo-ven"), I believe. Just to
>> add interest....
>
> Does anyone pronounce it "proo-ven"?
I use the same vowel in "proved" and "proven", if
that's what you mean. I think that's standard in AmE.
--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia
Steve Hayes
wrote:
It depends on how you pronounce "Beethoven". Some pronounce the "o" as a
diphthong, others don't. Some pronounce the "Beet" the Dutch way as "Bate",
others the Afrikaans way as "Be it", and others the English way as "Beet".
But I pronounce "proven" to rhyme with "cloven", which I pronounce to rhyme
with "clover".
Don A. Gilmore
We do (Midwest US).
Don
Areff
Yes; the vowel is /u/. When I were in Scotland I heard people say "noo"
[nu:] for "no", if that's relevant.
--
Don A. Gilmore
news:2jhcm6F...@uni-berlin.de...
>> Bullshit. "Disproved" and "disproven" are both available as the past
> participle. Either can be used in any of your three example sentences
> above.
Calm down, silly; nobody's talking about your mother.
Though it may not be a steadfast rule, the conjugation of "-en" verbs that I
mentioned is extremely common. Here are just a few that I can think of off
the top of my head:
give, gave, have given
beat, beat, have beaten
hide, hid, have hidden
break, broke, have broken
drive, drove, have driven
choose, chose, have chosen
write, wrote, have written
take, took, have taken
strike, struck, have stricken
freeze, froze, have frozen
get, got, have gotten
eat, ate, have eaten
bite, bit, have bitten
forget, forgot, have forgotten
forgive, forgave, gave forgiven
wake, woke, have woken
steal, stole, have stolen
prove, proved, have proven
And here are few that don't literally have "-en" as a suffix, but are of
similar form:
do, did, have done
go, went, have gone
know, knew, have known
grow, grew, have grown
show, showed, have shown
see, saw, have seen
blow, blew, have blown
throw, threw, have thrown
etc., etc.
Don
meirman
djpi...@bigmailbox.net (David Picton) posted:
>
>> Even with the present trend to make "small" dictionaries bigger than
>> their commercial competitors to give an illusion (and it is an
>> illusion) of value for money, there are length limits.
>
>Not only dictionaries. Car manufacturers have long suffered from this
>size inflation syndrome. I recall a recent TV advertisement for the
>VW Polo. All the versions were shown in quick succession, and it
>looked as if someone was pumping up the car through the exhaust pipe!
>Eventually the 'small' models become medium-sized and new, smaller
>models must be launched to plug the gap in the market. I guess that
>the same thing is happening with dictionaries...
I don't keep track of car models, so the only other example I know of
this is the Thunderbird. When it was brought back it was a lot bigger
than before.
In the case of cars, just a guess but it may be that they are trying
to sell the same model to some of the same people who bought earlier
cars of that model, and who grow older, have more money, want a
bigger, more comfortable car.
They may also think, or their market research may show, that young
people want a model that never existed before. I'm not like that,
never was. But "This is not your father's Oldsmobile" seems like an
attempt to counteract this with a whole make of cars, not merely a
model. And it seems it didn't work.
Tony Mountifield
meirman <mei...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> This isn't really about grammar, in my meaning of the word. It's only
> about one verb and what its 3rd principle part is.
>
> Even in the sum of all the English classes I've taken, we certainly
> didn't discuss every single verb. I had never even considered
> disprove before and was surprised to hear that 'has been disproven" is
> not approved. (or approven!) It seems to me if -en is good enough
> for prove, it's good enough for disprove, so I would probably still
> use it. (But not "approven". :) )
On thinking about it (as a BrE speaker), I would tend to use "proven"
as an adjective ("a proven concept"), and "proved" as the past participle
("I have proved my theory").
I would probably do the same with "disproven" and "disproved".
Cheers
Tony
--
Tony Mountifield
Work: to...@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: to...@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org
Robert Lieblich
>
> In alt.english.usage on 18 Jun 2004 05:08:04 -0700
> djpi...@bigmailbox.net (David Picton) posted:
>
> >
> >> Even with the present trend to make "small" dictionaries bigger than
> >> their commercial competitors to give an illusion (and it is an
> >> illusion) of value for money, there are length limits.
> >
> >Not only dictionaries. Car manufacturers have long suffered from this
> >size inflation syndrome. I recall a recent TV advertisement for the
> >VW Polo. All the versions were shown in quick succession, and it
> >looked as if someone was pumping up the car through the exhaust pipe!
> >Eventually the 'small' models become medium-sized and new, smaller
> >models must be launched to plug the gap in the market. I guess that
> >the same thing is happening with dictionaries...
>
> I don't keep track of car models, so the only other example I know of
> this is the Thunderbird. When it was brought back it was a lot bigger
> than before.
After three years (1955-57) of producing a two-passenger
Thunderbird, Ford blew it up to four seats, and over the years it
tended to bloat. One reason Ford introduced the Mustang in the
Sixties was to get back some of two-passenger business. But the
"brought-back" Thunderbird of 2002 is a near copy of the original
two-passenger version. <http://tinyurl.com/2fqee>
It used to be common for top-of-the-line models to slip down the
line, losing panache if not bulk. The Chevrolet Bel Air was the top
model in the mid-Fifties, but by the mid-Sixties it had been elbowed
aside by the Impala (originally (1958 models) just a fancy Bel
Air). Cars like the Dodge Dart and Buick Special, once full-size,
became compacts. There's no real pattern. Recent bloat is part of
the SUV phenomenon, about which the less said the better.
[ ... ]
> They may also think, or their market research may show, that young
> people want a model that never existed before. I'm not like that,
> never was. But "This is not your father's Oldsmobile" seems like an
> attempt to counteract this with a whole make of cars, not merely a
> model. And it seems it didn't work.
GM cars overlap greatly in almost all mechanical parts. It's been a
long time since Oldsmobiles had Hydromatic transmissions and Buicks
had Dynaflow and those really were two very different
transmissions. Olds died because of its advertising image. Change
a little sheet metal, and a Buick or Pontiac is an Oldsmobile. But
Oldsmobile couldn't find a market niche. When I was a kid Pontiacs
were for little old ladies, Buicks were for gray-fallen executives,
and Oldsmobiles (with their "Rocket" engines) were hot stuff.
There's probably a book to be written about how those images
shifted.
--
Bob Lieblich
Who now drives a Volvo
Tony Cooper
<Robert....@Verizon.net> wrote:
> When I was a kid Pontiacs
>were for little old ladies, Buicks were for gray-fallen executives,
I always thought of Buicks as "doctor's cars". The Buick was
respectable and luxurious enough to suit a doctor, but not too
ostentatious. That was before doctors thought it was OK to be
ostentatious. Executives drove Cadillacs and Packards.
Einde O'Callaghan
> In alt.english.usage on 18 Jun 2004 05:08:04 -0700
> djpi...@bigmailbox.net (David Picton) posted:
>
>
>>>Even with the present trend to make "small" dictionaries bigger than
>>>their commercial competitors to give an illusion (and it is an
>>>illusion) of value for money, there are length limits.
>>
>>Not only dictionaries. Car manufacturers have long suffered from this
>>size inflation syndrome. I recall a recent TV advertisement for the
>>VW Polo. All the versions were shown in quick succession, and it
>>looked as if someone was pumping up the car through the exhaust pipe!
>>Eventually the 'small' models become medium-sized and new, smaller
>>models must be launched to plug the gap in the market. I guess that
>>the same thing is happening with dictionaries...
>
>
> I don't keep track of car models, so the only other example I know of
> this is the Thunderbird. When it was brought back it was a lot bigger
> than before.
>
introduced in Britain in the 1960s was considerably smaller and more
manoeuvrable than normal small cars. Recently they have brought out a
new model which they call a Mini, but it's actually larger than the
small cars of the 1960s and reminds me more of a tank than a Mini.
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
John Briggs
And it was brought out by BMW rather than by MG Rover - but that's another
story :-)
--
John Briggs
John Briggs
> In article <1iq6d01r00pi4vic7...@4ax.com>,
> meirman <mei...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> This isn't really about grammar, in my meaning of the word. It's only
>> about one verb and what its 3rd principle part is.
>>
>> Even in the sum of all the English classes I've taken, we certainly
>> didn't discuss every single verb. I had never even considered
>> disprove before and was surprised to hear that 'has been disproven" is
>> not approved. (or approven!) It seems to me if -en is good enough
>> for prove, it's good enough for disprove, so I would probably still
>> use it. (But not "approven". :) )
>
> On thinking about it (as a BrE speaker), I would tend to use "proven"
> as an adjective ("a proven concept"), and "proved" as the past participle
> ("I have proved my theory").
>
> I would probably do the same with "disproven" and "disproved".
>
I would say that you can't say "a disproven concept".
--
John Briggs
Dylan Nicholson
> On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 12:39:40 +1000, "Dylan Nicholson"
<wizo...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >"Steve Hayes" <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:40d392e9...@news.saix.net...
> >>
> >>
> >That's certainly the only pronunication I've ever used or remember
hearing.
> >m-w.com gives 'prO-v&n (to rhyme with beethoven) as a British
pronunication.
> >www.wordreference.com (Collins) only gives proo-ven. Is 'prO-v&n used in
> >S.Af then?
>
> It depends on how you pronounce "Beethoven". Some pronounce the "o" as a
> diphthong, others don't. Some pronounce the "Beet" the Dutch way as
"Bate",
> others the Afrikaans way as "Be it", and others the English way as "Beet".
>
(toven to rhyme with cloven, and, apparenty your 'proven').
Presumably the German pronunciation is quite different (would it end
in -hoffen?). It's curious how some composers' names get reasonable
approximations of the original pronunications, others gets fairly little
such respect.
Dylan
Mike Stevens
> I would say that you can't say "a disproven concept".
I don't see how a concept can be either proven or disproven. Those
words apply to a statement, a theory, a hypothesis, an allegation, a
supposition, an accusation, to all sorts of things, but *not* to a
concept.
Perhaps that's what John meant.
--
Mike Stevens, narrowboat Felis Catus II
Web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
No man is an island. So is Man.
meirman
<john.b...@ntlworld.com> posted:
Assuming Mike's wrong in interpreting this:
It's hard to prove a negative but not always impossible.
Especially if you phrase the concept right! Like, "It's impossible
for a horse and a donkey to have offspring." Leave one of each sex
alone for long enough and you can disprove that.
Odysseus
>
> John Briggs <john.b...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> > I would say that you can't say "a disproven concept".
>
> I don't see how a concept can be either proven or disproven. Those
> words apply to a statement, a theory, a hypothesis, an allegation, a
> supposition, an accusation, to all sorts of things, but *not* to a
> concept.
>
refers to a pilot project, prototype, or working model of some kind.
If the trial is successful the design or procedure being investigated
might then be described as a "proven concept". Here the meaning of
"prove" is more like "test" than "show to be true", so there's no
corresponding "disproof".
--
Odysseus
David Picton
> "eromlignod" <eroml...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:5778ec55.04061...@posting.google.com...
> > I'm getting in late on this discussion.
> >
> > Most verbs in English have these forms. Am I missing something here?
> >
> > Don
>
>
> Yes, the fact that "disproven" is such a rare usage that it is not shown in
> most dictionaries.
Correction: it *used* to be rare, but isn't particiularly rare now. I
refer you to my original post. A survey of the Web: 24% disproven,
76% disproved (as past participle).
David Picton
> meirman wrote:
> > I don't keep track of car models, so the only other example I know of
> > this is the Thunderbird. When it was brought back it was a lot bigger
> > than before.
> >
> I recall that the Mini (Mini Minor, Mini Cooper etc.) when it was
> introduced in Britain in the 1960s was considerably smaller and more
> manoeuvrable than normal small cars. Recently they have brought out a
> new model which they call a Mini, but it's actually larger than the
> small cars of the 1960s and reminds me more of a tank than a Mini.
That's because it's hard to make a really small car which passes the
current regulations for passenger safety. I think the rule in Britain
is that a new (or significantly revised) model must pass the safety
regulations current at the time, after which it can be manufactured
for an indefinite period. This allowed the Mini to remain small, but
when it was eventually updated it had to become much larger.
> Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
David Picton
> In alt.english.usage on Sun, 20 Jun 2004 23:33:32 +0100 "John Briggs"
> <john.b...@ntlworld.com> posted:
>
> >Tony Mountifield wrote:
> >> In article <1iq6d01r00pi4vic7...@4ax.com>,
> >> meirman <mei...@erols.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> This isn't really about grammar, in my meaning of the word. It's only
> >>> about one verb and what its 3rd principle part is.
> >>>
> >>> Even in the sum of all the English classes I've taken, we certainly
> >>> didn't discuss every single verb. I had never even considered
> >>> disprove before and was surprised to hear that 'has been disproven" is
> >>> not approved. (or approven!) It seems to me if -en is good enough
> >>> for prove, it's good enough for disprove, so I would probably still
> >>> use it. (But not "approven". :) )
> >>
> >> On thinking about it (as a BrE speaker), I would tend to use "proven"
> >> as an adjective ("a proven concept"), and "proved" as the past participle
> >> ("I have proved my theory").
> >>
> >> I would probably do the same with "disproven" and "disproved".
> >>
> >
> >I would say that you can't say "a disproven concept".
>
> Assuming Mike's wrong in interpreting this:
>
> It's hard to prove a negative but not always impossible.
>
> Especially if you phrase the concept right! Like, "It's impossible
> for a horse and a donkey to have offspring." Leave one of each sex
> alone for long enough and you can disprove that.
I would describe that as an assertion, not a concept. An example of a
concept s a new design idea for a bicycle. It might be possible to
show that the concept is impracticable, but I'm not sure that you
could say that it had been 'disproven'.
Tony Mountifield
Fair enough, but I was actually more interested in the adjective vs.
participle distinction.
Cheers,
Raymond S. Wise
news:2ad9e934.04062...@posting.google.com...
A search of Google Groups archive ( www.deja.com ) turns up two examples of
my having used "disproven" (a third example was the result of my quoting
*The Century Dictionary,* which in turn was quoting *Natural Theology* by
Thomas Chalmers).
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
David Picton
> "Martin Ambuhl" <mam...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:2jhcm6F...@uni-berlin.de...
> >> Bullshit. "Disproved" and "disproven" are both available as the past
> > participle. Either can be used in any of your three example sentences
> > above.
> [etc., etc.]
>
> Calm down, silly; nobody's talking about your mother.
>
> Though it may not be a steadfast rule, the conjugation of "-en" verbs that I
> mentioned is extremely common. Here are just a few that I can think of off
> the top of my head:
>
>
> And here are few that don't literally have "-en" as a suffix, but are of
> similar form:
>
I think that the "-n" suffixes in words like "shown" were originally
"en".
There does seem to be one consistent trend in the use of -n forms: as
adjectives, they are usually favoured over alternative past-participle
forms. For example: a proven concept, a swollen ankle, the laden
weight, a stricken ship, molten metal, a sawn-off shotgun, a shaven
head etc. (Of course there are some exceptions: for example, "molten"
is rarely used for butter or chocolate).
David Picton
> In article <1iq6d01r00pi4vic7...@4ax.com>,
> meirman <mei...@erols.com> wrote:
> >
> > This isn't really about grammar, in my meaning of the word. It's only
> > about one verb and what its 3rd principle part is.
> >
> > Even in the sum of all the English classes I've taken, we certainly
> > didn't discuss every single verb. I had never even considered
> > disprove before and was surprised to hear that 'has been disproven" is
> > not approved. (or approven!) It seems to me if -en is good enough
> > for prove, it's good enough for disprove, so I would probably still
> > use it. (But not "approven". :) )
>
> On thinking about it (as a BrE speaker), I would tend to use "proven"
> as an adjective ("a proven concept"), and "proved" as the past participle
> ("I have proved my theory").
I would also use 'proven' in passive constructions (e.g. "The theory
was proven") but 'proved' in the active voice (e.g. "We have proved
the theory".) I would also choose 'proved' for some idiomatic uses
e.g. "I was proved right".
> I would probably do the same with "disproven" and "disproved".
I'd use "disproven" in a Web posting but avoid it in a more formal
context, e.g. an academic paper.
>
> Cheers
> Tony
David Picton
> "eromlignod" <eroml...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:5778ec55.04061...@posting.google.com...
> It looks to me as if "disproven" has always been a rare usage, given that
> *The Century Dictionary,* a multi-volume American dictionary of 1895 shows
> "proven" (although its editors disapprove of the variant), but not
> "disproven":
That answers my original question. "Disproven" was used in 19th
century British literature so it made its way into the OED, the NSOED
and early editions of the COD - but it remained rare in the US and
never made it into American dictionaries. The word is reappearing,
but it's now mainly happening west-of-Pond! From a US viewpoint it's
perceived as a new form rather than a revived archaism, and it will
therefore need to become very well established to gain entrance into
US dictionaries. However, I'll be very interested to see what the OED
makes of it when the latest revision gets round to the letter 'D' ...
Edward
[...]
> WOW! I didn't even realise this was cross-posted to other British
> groups; I SHOULD HAVE known that the original poster was a Brit, as
> anyone who would question the legitimasy of "proven" must be. It's
> good to hear you Brits are retroverting towards use of the proper past
> participles. If only I could convince you all that "I'm being well"
> is standard and acceptable (none of the AMERICANS at this board seem
> to have any issues with it)
Why do you care? What does it mean? It seems a funny construction to
me, anyway, though I suppose that I might utter the words "I'm being
well looked after", if the barman was keeping my glass charged.
> ...and then there's that whole "likely
> ain't an adverb" shit! OY! They're pulling our language down the
> shitter!
Who's pulling whose language "down the shitter"? Does the fact that
it's called "English" give you any clue as to its antecedents?
> I mean, honestly, have you ever seen Ali G? They can't even
> speak ghetto or Ebonics correctly!
Who's they? Ali G is a singular person, not a "they". And the whole
point about Ali G is precisely that he can't do the wigger thing
properly. Surely that's obvious? Or are you trying to infer that
"the Brits" can't speak ghetto (which should, presumably, be Ghetto) -
I should have thought that this was a point in our favour, personally.
In any case, hadn't you heard that we steadfastly refuse to learn
foreign languages, prefering instead to shout in English at
uncomprehending foreigners?
Edward
--
The reading group's reading group:
http://www.bookgroup.org.uk
David Picton
> >
> > I would say that you can't say "a disproven concept".
>
> Fair enough, but I was actually more interested in the adjective vs.
> participle distinction.
Here is an example of 'disproven' used as an adjective, from the Daily
Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/05/18/hheal18.xml
A health column refers to treatments which have been shown to be
ineffective:
"There may be some consolation in knowing that these disproven
remedies represent only a fraction of the total, but who is to say
that there are not many more treatments which, if systematically
tested too, would be found wanting in a similar way?"
P.S. I don't think you can argue that "disprove" is the wrong verb to
use in this case - it means "prove to be false", and one sense of
"false" is "illusory."
Aaron J. Dinkin
> There does seem to be one consistent trend in the use of -n forms: as
> adjectives, they are usually favoured over alternative past-participle
> forms. For example: a proven concept, a swollen ankle, the laden
> weight, a stricken ship, molten metal, a sawn-off shotgun, a shaven
> head etc.
I've only (knowingly) heard "sawd-off shotgun". "Shaved head" sounds better to
me also.
> (Of course there are some exceptions: for example, "molten" is rarely used
> for butter or chocolate).
But it should be. Chocolate, anyway.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Aaron J. Dinkin
> I would also use 'proven' in passive constructions (e.g. "The theory
> was proven") but 'proved' in the active voice (e.g. "We have proved
> the theory".) I would also choose 'proved' for some idiomatic uses
> e.g. "I was proved right".
Funny. In all three of these examples, I would do the exact opposite of what
you do. I'm not trying to be contrary.
Eric Schwartz
> I've only (knowingly) heard "sawd-off shotgun".
Which has the excellent homonym "sod-off shotgun".
> "Shaved head" sounds better to me also.
Ditto.
>> (Of course there are some exceptions: for example, "molten" is rarely used
>> for butter or chocolate).
>
> But it should be. Chocolate, anyway.
A mental review of most of my recipes that call for melting chocolate
indicates that it's either "melted chocolat" or just "chocolate". The
latter, of course, after the instructions to melt it.
-=Eric
--
Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million
typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare.
-- Blair Houghton.
eromlignod
> There does seem to be one consistent trend in the use of -n forms: as
> adjectives, they are usually favoured over alternative past-participle
> forms. For example: a proven concept, a swollen ankle, the laden
> weight, a stricken ship, molten metal, a sawn-off shotgun, a shaven
> head etc. (Of course there are some exceptions: for example, "molten"
> is rarely used for butter or chocolate).
Molten (at least in the engineering world) usually refers to
substances that melt at very high temperatures and that give off light
(glow) when in the liquid state, e.g. metals, rock (lava), ceramics,
salts, etc.
I have also heard "molten" used in humorous contexts to exaggerate the
temperature of a substance like, "The molten cheese came loose from
the bubbling pizza slice in an arc resembling a solar prominence,
instantly searing the flesh of my chin and neck upon contact and
subsequent semi-permanent adhesion."
Don
Kansas City
Aaron J. Dinkin
> "Aaron J. Dinkin" <din...@babel.ling.upenn.edu> writes:
>
>> I've only (knowingly) heard "sawd-off shotgun".
>
> Which has the excellent homonym "sod-off shotgun".
Only for some of us. (Including me.)
>>> (Of course there are some exceptions: for example, "molten" is
>>> rarely used for butter or chocolate).
>>
>> But it should be. Chocolate, anyway.
>
> A mental review of most of my recipes that call for melting chocolate
> indicates that it's either "melted chocolat" or just "chocolate".
Sure. But I like the sound of "molten chocolate" so much better.
Matti Lamprhey
> David Picton <djpi...@bigmailbox.net> wrote:
>
> > I would also use 'proven' in passive constructions (e.g. "The theory
> > was proven") but 'proved' in the active voice (e.g. "We have proved
> > the theory".) I would also choose 'proved' for some idiomatic uses
> > e.g. "I was proved right".
>
> Funny. In all three of these examples, I would do the exact opposite
> of what you do. I'm not trying to be contrary.
I'd agree with David's usage here. Rather than active/passive, I'd
describe the split as adjectival/non-adjectival, but that may just be my
ignorance.
I'm guessing that David is Rightpondian, like me, but then I might be
wrong about that too.
Matti
Matthew Huntbach
> de...@aol.com (DE781) wrote in message news:
>> I mean, honestly, have you ever seen Ali G? They can't even
>> speak ghetto or Ebonics correctly!
> Who's they? Ali G is a singular person, not a "they". And the whole
> point about Ali G is precisely that he can't do the wigger thing
> properly. Surely that's obvious? Or are you trying to infer that
> "the Brits" can't speak ghetto (which should, presumably, be Ghetto) -
> I should have thought that this was a point in our favour, personally.
Yes, "Ali G" is a comic figure designed to poke fun at people who come from
quiet prosperous suburbs (like Staines) but attempt to adopt the mannerisms
of people who come from poor inner city areas.
However, an additional factor is that "ghetto" or "ebonics" woud be
different in Britain than in the USA. Why should black people in Britain
speak the same variety of English as black people in the USA, any more than
white people in Britain speak the same variety of English as white people in
the USA? If by what is called "ghetto" is meant the speech of young black
people in inner cities, in Britain that would show a lot of influence from
popular USA black entertainers, but at its base would be the speech patterns
of the Carribean, possibly also with some influence from other groups
descended from 20th century immigrants to Britain.
Matthew Huntbach
Alex Hunsley
> "Brian.Farrelly" <Brian.F...@nho.hydro.com> wrote in message news:<40D29E08...@nho.hydro.com>...
>
>
> WOW! I didn't even realise this was cross-posted to other British
> groups; I SHOULD HAVE known that the original poster was a Brit, as
> anyone who would question the legitimasy of "proven" must be. It's
> good to hear you Brits are retroverting towards use of the proper past
> participles. If only I could convince you all that "I'm being well"
> is standard and acceptable (none of the AMERICANS at this board seem
> to have any issues with it)...and then there's that whole "likely
> ain't an adverb" shit! OY! They're pulling our language down the
> shitter! I mean, honestly, have you ever seen Ali G? They can't even
> speak ghetto or Ebonics correctly!
That is by design - Ali G, the character, is a parody of someone trying to be
hip and in. But the show works on multiple levels: the genius (and the dramatic
irony perhaps) is when the Ali G character is used to interview people and to
draw them and their absurdities out for all to see. The interviewee, in a lot
of cases it seems, is unaware of what is really going on, and is playing along
to the character of Ali G.
I recall the show where Ali G went to the states and spoke to the head of the
NRA (I think it was) - he asked her, mock ignorance, "has anyone been killed
by a gun?", to which the head said "I don't know..."!
David Picton
> On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 15:07:20 -0600, Eric Schwartz <emsc...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > "Aaron J. Dinkin" <din...@babel.ling.upenn.edu> writes:
> >
> >> I've only (knowingly) heard "sawd-off shotgun".
> >
Sorry - I should have checked for Pondian differences. Sawed-off
left-of-Pond, sawn-off right-of-Pond.
>
> >>> (Of course there are some exceptions: for example, "molten" is
> >>> rarely used for butter or chocolate).
> >>
> >> But it should be. Chocolate, anyway.
> >
> > A mental review of most of my recipes that call for melting chocolate
> > indicates that it's either "melted chocolat" or just "chocolate".
>
> Sure. But I like the sound of "molten chocolate" so much better.
I agree. Molten chocolate sounds far more delicious. A web search
reveals two uses for the term:
1. Melted chocolate, both in recipes and in technical articles on
liquid chocolate as an industrial material:
"Molten chocolate is an example of a complex fluid showing
non-Newtonian (i.e. drag increases non-linearly with shear rate)
rheological properties."
2. A warm chocolate sauce, made by adding ingredients to melted
chocolate. Used in desserts e.g. "molten chocolate cakes".
I'll now have to resist the temptation to pig out on chocolate ...
David
<m...@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> wrote:
> However, an additional factor is that "ghetto" or "ebonics" woud be
> different in Britain than in the USA. Why should black people in
> Britain speak the same variety of English as black people in the USA,
> any more than white people in Britain speak the same variety of
> English as white people in the USA?
I note that "British English" is becoming quite similar than US English.
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/ -- Dacha's Digital Domicile
http://www.grough.freeuk.com/j02.htm -- Trees I Have Known
David Picton
> "Aaron J. Dinkin" <din...@babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote...
> > David Picton <djpi...@bigmailbox.net> wrote:
> >
> > > I would also use 'proven' in passive constructions (e.g. "The theory
> > > was proven") but 'proved' in the active voice (e.g. "We have proved
> > > the theory".) I would also choose 'proved' for some idiomatic uses
> > > e.g. "I was proved right".
> >
> > Funny. In all three of these examples, I would do the exact opposite
> > of what you do. I'm not trying to be contrary.
>
> I'd agree with David's usage here. Rather than active/passive, I'd
> describe the split as adjectival/non-adjectival, but that may just be my
> ignorance.
I have to agree that it's sometimes hard to distinguish between
adjectival uses and passive uses. If I say "The theory was proven",
am I using "prove" as a verb in the passive voice, or am I using
"proven" as an adjective to describe the theory? In my view this type
of statement usually refers to the act of proof, and therefore comes
into the passive-voice category.
> I'm guessing that David is Rightpondian, like me, but then I might be
> wrong about that too.
Rightpondian.
> Matti
Areff
> In article <cbbjnu$j56$2...@beta.qmul.ac.uk>, Matthew Huntbach
><m...@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> However, an additional factor is that "ghetto" or "ebonics" woud be
>> different in Britain than in the USA. Why should black people in
>> Britain speak the same variety of English as black people in the USA,
>> any more than white people in Britain speak the same variety of
>> English as white people in the USA?
>
> I note that "British English" is becoming quite similar than US English.
We all know that the British (not to mention one or two Australians) like
to use "different to" instead of "different from", but this is the first
time I've seen "similar than" -- does it mean "similar to", or something
else?
--
David Picton
> "Raymond S. Wise" <mplsra...@gbronline.com> wrote in message news:<6PSdnbilL9N...@gbronline.com>...
> > "eromlignod" <eroml...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:5778ec55.04061...@posting.google.com...
>
> > It looks to me as if "disproven" has always been a rare usage, given that
> > *The Century Dictionary,* a multi-volume American dictionary of 1895 shows
> > "proven" (although its editors disapprove of the variant), but not
> > "disproven":
>
> That answers my original question. "Disproven" was used in 19th
> century British literature so it made its way into the OED, the NSOED
> and early editions of the COD
century version.) I can see why the Chambers Dictionary is favoured by
Scrabble players! However I'm less keen on the Chambers 21st Century
Dictionary because it's too keen to strike out 'archaic' forms without
checking whether they're really obsolete.
Einde O'Callaghan
> In article <cbbjnu$j56$2...@beta.qmul.ac.uk>, Matthew Huntbach
> <m...@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>However, an additional factor is that "ghetto" or "ebonics" woud be
>>different in Britain than in the USA. Why should black people in
>>Britain speak the same variety of English as black people in the USA,
>>any more than white people in Britain speak the same variety of
>>English as white people in the USA?
>
>
> I note that "British English" is becoming quite similar than US English.
>
>
than that. It strikes me that among young people Australian speech
patterns seem to be just as prevalent if not more so - probably the
result of a couple of generations of "Neighbours" and other Ozzie soaps.
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
David Picton
> djpi...@bigmailbox.net (David Picton) wrote in message news:<2ad9e934.04062...@posting.google.com>...
> > There does seem to be one consistent trend in the use of -n forms: as
> > adjectives, they are usually favoured over alternative past-participle
> > forms. For example: a proven concept, a swollen ankle, the laden
> > weight, a stricken ship, molten metal, a sawn-off shotgun, a shaven
> > head etc. (Of course there are some exceptions: for example, "molten"
> > is rarely used for butter or chocolate).
>
> Molten (at least in the engineering world) usually refers to
> substances that melt at very high temperatures and that give off light
> (glow) when in the liquid state, e.g. metals, rock (lava), ceramics,
> salts, etc.
At the other extreme, I did find a few hits for metals and salts which
are "molten at room temperature".
Wood Avens
wrote:
>liquid chocolate as an industrial material
I'm getting my imagination working on this.
--
Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @
David
I dunno. I've been hearing "different than" quite a lot of late; the
term "ass" now seems to mean other than donkey this side of the pond;
and only the other week I read a news post where some English fellow
went on about putting something in a "draw", and he didn't mean
donating it to the church fete's tombola.
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/ -- Dacha's Digital Domicile
http://www.grough.freeuk.com/j03.htm -- Eye Aim A Camera
Skitt
> I dunno. I've been hearing "different than" quite a lot of late; the
> term "ass" now seems to mean other than donkey this side of the pond;
> and only the other week I read a news post where some English fellow
> went on about putting something in a "draw", and he didn't mean
> donating it to the church fete's tombola.
What kind of a draw was that? A gully?
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
Mike Stevens
news:cbbjnu$j56$2...@beta.qmul.ac.uk...
> However, an additional factor is that "ghetto" or "ebonics" woud be
> different in Britain than in the USA. Why should black people in Britain
> speak the same variety of English as black people in the USA, any more
than
> white people in Britain speak the same variety of English as white people
in
> the USA? If by what is called "ghetto" is meant the speech of young black
> people in inner cities, in Britain that would show a lot of influence from
> popular USA black entertainers, but at its base would be the speech
patterns
> of the Carribean, possibly also with some influence from other groups
> descended from 20th century immigrants to Britain.
It may well be that my experience of what this thread is calling "ghetto" is
out of date. But for over 20 years I used to teach in an inner-city school
in Brixton, South London, UK, where there was an extensive population of
black youngsters, with their own wide variety of forms of English.
Some were first-generation immigrants from the Caribbean or Africa, whose
forms of English were those used in their home countries - different from
each other, from US black English and from London black English.
Many were born in this country, mainly to parents of Caribbean origin. Most
of these were bilingual between standard (white) "sarflund'n" and a form of
patois which they called "Jamaican" but which seemed to me to have only the
most superficial resemblance to what I heard from actual Jamaica-born
people. Significantly many of these youngsters at age 11 or 12 were happy
to speak sarflund'n nearly all the time, but a few years later would adopt
mock-Jamaican as (I presumed) a self-identifying decision.
Most interesting to me were those youngsters (quite a few of them) who left
our school and went on to study Law. When they came back to visit us they
had invariably changed their speech-pattern entirely, to one which I've only
come across among UK black lawyers, among whom it's almost universal. It
seems to combine some elements of RP with a background trace of Caribbean
influence and a heavy seasoning of the tortured vowels of an upper-class
hyperlect which has become pretty rare among white speakers of UK English
outside the Royal Family. For those of you who follow UK politics, a good
example is provided by Paul Boateng MP.
--
Mike Stevens
narrowboat "Felis Catus II"
My web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
No man is an island. So is Man.
David
Skitt <ski...@comcast.net> wrote:
> David wrote:
>
> > I dunno. I've been hearing "different than" quite a lot of late;
> > the term "ass" now seems to mean other than donkey this side of the
> > pond; and only the other week I read a news post where some English
> > fellow went on about putting something in a "draw", and he didn't
> > mean donating it to the church fete's tombola.
> What kind of a draw was that? A gully?
A drawer. No doubt "drawer" is used in some parts of the US as well as
"draw".
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/ -- Dacha's Digital Domicile
http://www.grough.freeuk.com/j04.htm -- Scenes Be Leaving
Dylan Nicholson
news:4cc3c51...@dacha.freeuk.com...
>
> A drawer. No doubt "drawer" is used in some parts of the US as well as
> "draw".
>
'drawer'?
In AusE (and I assume most non-rhotic BrE accents) they are pronounced the
same*, so to spell the latter like the former wouldn't seem unreasonable,
but it doesn't appear to be officially recognised as such (and going by
google, isn't *all* that common - presumably because they are pronounced
differently in AmE rhotic accents).
* "Drawer" meaning someone who draws *is* pronounced differently in AusE,
however. I noticed that m-w.com gives dro(-&)r, presumably meaning that
sometimes the extra schwa isn't pronounced, but doesn't tie this to any
particular definition of drawer.
Skitt
> Skitt wrote:
>> David wrote:
>>> I dunno. I've been hearing "different than" quite a lot of late;
>>> the term "ass" now seems to mean other than donkey this side of the
>>> pond; and only the other week I read a news post where some English
>>> fellow went on about putting something in a "draw", and he didn't
>>> mean donating it to the church fete's tombola.
>
>> What kind of a draw was that? A gully?
>
> A drawer. No doubt "drawer" is used in some parts of the US as well as
> "draw".
I've never heard of "draw" being used to mean "drawer". That does not mean
that it never has, but it does mean that such usage, if it does exist in the
US, is rare and not documented by dictionaries.
Ben Zimmer
From OED2:
draw, n.
7. b. A drawer. U.S.
1692 in Connecticut Probate Rec. (1904) I. 463, I giue to
lizabeth Thomson..one table with a draue in it. 1748 N.H.
Probate Rec. III. 565, I give..my chist of draws to my
dafter Lidea. 1775 Essex Inst. Hist. Coll. XIII. 188 You
know I can take a Draw at a time and lay them in the same
manner into Dr Gardners. 1829 in W. L. Mackenzie Lives
Butler & Hoyt (1845) 50 That celebrated receptacle of
Chancery papers..the draw or bushel-basket..of his
venerable predecessor. 1862 LOWELL Biglow P. 2nd Ser. III.
108 Once git a smell o' musk into a draw An' it clings
hold. 1898 E. N. WESTCOTT David Harum 143 They're in the
draw there. 1929 in WENTWORTH Amer. Dial. Dict. (1944)
178/2 The draw sticks. 1971 Amherst (Mass.) Record 28
July 15/1 Wanted to Buy. Two draw file and adding machine.
Michael West
I never heard it either; not in the US and not in
Australia, but no doubt the CIA is in some way
to blame.
--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia
Dylan Nicholson
news:QupCc.59826$sj4....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Skitt wrote:
> >
> > I've never heard of "draw" being used to mean "drawer". That does not
mean
> > that it never has, but it does mean that such usage, if it does exist in
the
> > US, is rare and not documented by dictionaries.
>
> I never heard it either; not in the US and not in
> Australia,
How is this possible? They're pronounced the same here (at least, as far as
I'm aware. www.wordreference.com agrees, although it's the UK edition).
If you meant you never *saw* it, that's a different story.
Skitt
> "Michael West" wrote:
>> Skitt wrote:
>>> I've never heard of "draw" being used to mean "drawer". That does
>>> not mean that it never has, but it does mean that such usage, if it
>>> does exist in the US, is rare and not documented by dictionaries.
>>
>> I never heard it either; not in the US and not in
>> Australia,
>
> How is this possible? They're pronounced the same here (at least, as
> far as I'm aware. www.wordreference.com agrees, although it's the UK
> edition).
> If you meant you never *saw* it, that's a different story.
They are not pronounced the same, at least, not by me. I'm rhotic, and I
don't use the intrusive "r". I talk right! ;-)
Skitt
Oh, here's how:
Main Entry: draw·er
Pronunciation: 'dro(-&)r
Main Entry: 1draw
Pronunciation: 'dro
Dylan Nicholson
news:2jundrF...@uni-berlin.de...
I mentioned in another post that rhotic speakers would not pronounce them
alike.
But Michael specifically said he'd never heard anyone use 'draw' for
'drawer' in Australia.
Very few Australians would pronounce them differently, at least when
referring to the type of drawer that goes in a desk.
Michael West
Those sound like rural dialectical usages.
For what it's worth, it is not in the AHD or
the MW online.
Ben Zimmer
>
> Ben Zimmer wrote:
> > Skitt wrote:
> >> not mean that it never has, but it does mean that such usage, if it
> >> does exist in the US, is rare and not documented by dictionaries.
> >
> > From OED2:
> >
> > draw, n.
> > 7. b. A drawer. U.S.
> >
> > 1692 in Connecticut Probate Rec. (1904) I. 463, I giue to
> > lizabeth Thomson..one table with a draue in it. 1748 N.H.
> > Probate Rec. III. 565, I give..my chist of draws to my
> > dafter Lidea. 1775 Essex Inst. Hist. Coll. XIII. 188 You
> > know I can take a Draw at a time and lay them in the same
> > manner into Dr Gardners. 1829 in W. L. Mackenzie Lives
> > Butler & Hoyt (1845) 50 That celebrated receptacle of
> > Chancery papers..the draw or bushel-basket..of his
> > venerable predecessor. 1862 LOWELL Biglow P. 2nd Ser. III.
> > 108 Once git a smell o' musk into a draw An' it clings
> > hold. 1898 E. N. WESTCOTT David Harum 143 They're in the
> > draw there. 1929 in WENTWORTH Amer. Dial. Dict. (1944)
> > 178/2 The draw sticks. 1971 Amherst (Mass.) Record 28
> > July 15/1 Wanted to Buy. Two draw file and adding machine.
>
> "American" before "dictionaries", one. I just checked The Century
> Dictionary, and it do
> esn't have it either. Maybe the M-W Unabridged ...
>
> OK, I'll go with rare, dated, and dialectal -- an oddity.
I see it as a pronunciation spelling for those who pronounce the word as
[drO:] -- and that includes rhotic AmE speakers in my experience (it may
be a Midland phenomenon). MWCD11 includes [drO] as a dialectal
pronunciation of "drawer" but doesn't specify which dialect(s).
Michael West
specifically said he'd never heard anyone use 'draw' for
> 'drawer' in Australia.
> Very few Australians would pronounce them differently, at least when
> referring to the type of drawer that goes in a desk.
I suspect you're nearly right, except that some Aussies
are more rhotic than others. This would be true of some
southern and upper-eastern US dialects as well.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
In some british accents (Esturary?) "drawer" sometimes seems to be pronounced
"drawr@", like "drawring".
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Mike Stevens
news:c98b1ba0.0406...@posting.google.com...
> I love Ali G! He's the finest thing to come out of Britain this side
> of Judi Dench! But, anyhoo, even his parody of a parody of ghetto, or
> whatever it's supposed to be, SUCKS! I mean, come on! He sounds
> nothing like the Nubian Princesses of America: Omarosa, Lativah,
> Missy, and Mel B from the Spice Girls! I mean DAMN! I speak better
> mock Ebonics than Ali G does!
I've only come across the word Ebonics in this thread, but infer from the
context that it means (some for of?) black US speech. So if DE781 is
leftpondian, he may not have come across the form of English which Ali G is
parodying accurately, which is a specifically UK (and, I suspect, even more
specifically London) one, the pseudo-"Jamaican" of much London black youth,
as described in an earlier posting of mine.
Einde O'Callaghan
> Alex Hunsley <la...@tardis.ed.ac.molar.uk> wrote in message news:<10dilkd...@corp.supernews.com>...
>
>>DE781 wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Brian.Farrelly" <Brian.F...@nho.hydro.com> wrote in message news:<40D29E08...@nho.hydro.com>...
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>WOW! I didn't even realise this was cross-posted to other British
>>>groups; I SHOULD HAVE known that the original poster was a Brit, as
>>>anyone who would question the legitimasy of "proven" must be. It's
>>>good to hear you Brits are retroverting towards use of the proper past
>>>participles. If only I could convince you all that "I'm being well"
>>>is standard and acceptable (none of the AMERICANS at this board seem
>>>to have any issues with it)...and then there's that whole "likely
>>>ain't an adverb" shit! OY! They're pulling our language down the
>>>shitter! I mean, honestly, have you ever seen Ali G? They can't even
>>>speak ghetto or Ebonics correctly!
>>
>>That is by design - Ali G, the character, is a parody of someone trying to be
>>hip and in. But the show works on multiple levels: the genius (and the dramatic
>>irony perhaps) is when the Ali G character is used to interview people and to
>>draw them and their absurdities out for all to see. The interviewee, in a lot
>>of cases it seems, is unaware of what is really going on, and is playing along
>>to the character of Ali G.
>>
>>I recall the show where Ali G went to the states and spoke to the head of the
>>NRA (I think it was) - he asked her, mock ignorance, "has anyone been killed
>>by a gun?", to which the head said "I don't know..."!
>
>
> I love Ali G! He's the finest thing to come out of Britain this side
> of Judi Dench! But, anyhoo, even his parody of a parody of ghetto, or
> whatever it's supposed to be, SUCKS! I mean, come on! He sounds
> nothing like the Nubian Princesses of America: Omarosa, Lativah,
> Missy, and Mel B from the Spice Girls! I mean DAMN! I speak better
> mock Ebonics than Ali G does!
But you don't come from Staines.
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
Odysseus
>
> > > From OED2:
> > > draw, n.
> > > 7. b. A drawer. U.S.
> > >
>
> I see it as a pronunciation spelling for those who pronounce the word as
> [drO:] -- and that includes rhotic AmE speakers in my experience (it may
> be a Midland phenomenon). MWCD11 includes [drO] as a dialectal
> pronunciation of "drawer" but doesn't specify which dialect(s).
Norm Abram, of PBS's _The New Yankee Workshop_, pronounces "drawer"
pretty much as you indicate, with only a hint of a second syllable
(I'm not sure whether his vowel is a diphthong -- [drO:U]? -- or is
just very long). I believe he's from Massachusetts; if not, New
England at least.
--
Odysseus
Odysseus
>
> [...] I can see why the Chambers Dictionary is favoured by
> Scrabble players! However I'm less keen on the Chambers 21st Century
> Dictionary because it's too keen to strike out 'archaic' forms without
> checking whether they're really obsolete.
That's what the old OED is great for: 'backing up' a good current dictionary.
--
Odysseus
Raymond S. Wise
news:2jv5njF...@uni-berlin.de...
The term "Ebonics" has been used with a wide range of meanings, under some
of which the UK dialects you have in mind would qualify as Ebonics. I wrote
a Usenet post on the matter, which can be seen at Google Groups archive at
or
Linguists don't favor the term "Ebonics," but when they do use it, it is
usually with the narrow sense of a particular dialect which arose among
black people in America and is spoken by many of them today. Terms favored
by linguists for this dialect include "Black English Vernacular" ("BEV"),
"Black Vernacular English" ("BVE"), and "African American Vernacular
English" ("AAVE"). The advantage of the last term is that it makes it clear
that it is a dialect of black Americans which is being discussed.
DE781 appears to use "Ebonics" in an even narrower sense, that of the speech
spoken by inner-city black youth and in the hip-hop subculture.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Matthew Huntbach
> "Matthew Huntbach" <m...@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> wrote:
>> If by what is called "ghetto" is meant the speech of young black
>> people in inner cities, in Britain that would show a lot of influence from
>> popular USA black entertainers, but at its base would be the speech
>> patterns of the Carribean, possibly also with some influence from other
>> groups descended from 20th century immigrants to Britain.
> It may well be that my experience of what this thread is calling "ghetto" is
> out of date. But for over 20 years I used to teach in an inner-city school
> in Brixton, South London, UK, where there was an extensive population of
> black youngsters, with their own wide variety of forms of English.
>
> Some were first-generation immigrants from the Caribbean or Africa, whose
> forms of English were those used in their home countries - different from
> each other, from US black English and from London black English.
Indeed. One needs to be aware that African and Carribean English are quite
different from each other. Carribean English also varies from island to
island.
> Many were born in this country, mainly to parents of Caribbean origin. Most
> of these were bilingual between standard (white) "sarflund'n" and a form of
> patois which they called "Jamaican" but which seemed to me to have only the
> most superficial resemblance to what I heard from actual Jamaica-born
> people. Significantly many of these youngsters at age 11 or 12 were happy
> to speak sarflund'n nearly all the time, but a few years later would adopt
> mock-Jamaican as (I presumed) a self-identifying decision.
I am assuming this "mock Jamaican" is what others might call "ghetto". I.e.
it's a language deliberately adopted and exaggerrated in order to cultivate
a "tough guy" image. The raw material from which it would be taken would be
Jamaican English (Jamaicans generally considered to be more aggressive than
those from the smaller islands, it wouldn't have the same effect to speak
e.g. Bajan), but probably also a lot of influence from USA black
entertainers.
What would have changed from your days is that the black population even in
places like Brixton which were the heart of Carribean London is now much
more of direct African origin. Likelihood is if you were teaching these
days, your black pupils would most likely be of Nigerian origin.
> Most interesting to me were those youngsters (quite a few of them) who left
> our school and went on to study Law. When they came back to visit us they
> had invariably changed their speech-pattern entirely, to one which I've only
> come across among UK black lawyers, among whom it's almost universal. It
> seems to combine some elements of RP with a background trace of Caribbean
> influence and a heavy seasoning of the tortured vowels of an upper-class
> hyperlect which has become pretty rare among white speakers of UK English
> outside the Royal Family. For those of you who follow UK politics, a good
> example is provided by Paul Boateng MP.
Ah, but Boateng is a Ghanaian, not a West Indian. He comes from an upper
class Ghanaian family. It's possible your black lawyer English is actually
West African posh school English.
Matthew Huntbach
Matthew Huntbach
> I love Ali G! He's the finest thing to come out of Britain this side
> of Judi Dench! But, anyhoo, even his parody of a parody of ghetto, or
> whatever it's supposed to be, SUCKS! I mean, come on! He sounds
> nothing like the Nubian Princesses of America: Omarosa, Lativah,
> Missy, and Mel B from the Spice Girls! I mean DAMN! I speak better
> mock Ebonics than Ali G does!
If you're doing a paordy of a parody of X, quite obviously you shouldn't
sound like X. You should sound like someone trying to sound like X but
getting it badly wrong. The whole point of the Ali G act is that it's
*meant* to "suck".
Matthew Huntbach
Peter Duncanson
>> outside the Royal Family. For those of you who follow UK politics, a good
>> example is provided by Paul Boateng MP.
>
>Ah, but Boateng is a Ghanaian, not a West Indian. He comes from an upper
>class Ghanaian family. It's possible your black lawyer English is actually
>West African posh school English.
Boateng was subject to a number of influences.
http://www.csren.gov.uk/boateng.htm
<quote>
Born in Hackney [London], Mr Boateng grew up in Ghana where his father,
Kwaku Boateng, was a barrister, Christian evangelist and cabinet minister
who was later imprisoned. His mother Eleanor was Scottish.
The family fled to Britain after a military coup in 1967, when Mr Boateng
was a teenager.
</quote>
http://www.obv.org.uk/blackpolitician/mp-boateng.html
<quote>
Born in 1951 to Kwaku and Eleanor Boateng, Paul attended Ghana International
School, Accra Academy, Apsley Grammar School and earned an LLB in 1972 from
Bristol University.
</quote>
--
Peter Duncanson
UK
(posting from a.e.u)
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
<10dilkd...@corp.supernews.com>
la...@tardis.ed.ac.molar.uk "Alex Hunsley" wrote:
> That is by design - Ali G, the character, is a parody of someone trying to be
> hip and in. But the show works on multiple levels: the genius (and the dramatic
> irony perhaps) is when the Ali G character is used to interview people and to
> draw them and their absurdities out for all to see. The interviewee, in a lot
> of cases it seems, is unaware of what is really going on, and is playing along
> to the character of Ali G.
>
> I recall the show where Ali G went to the states and spoke to the head of the
> NRA (I think it was) - he asked her, mock ignorance, "has anyone been killed
> by a gun?", to which the head said "I don't know..."!
NEVER expect Merkins to understand Irony; it's not in their mindset.
--
fix (vb.): 1. to paper over, obscure, hide from public view; 2. to
work around, in a way that produces unintended consequences that are
worse than the original problem. Usage: "Windows ME fixes many of the
shortcomings of Windows 98 SE".
David
<b...@dsl.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wednesday, in article <10dilkd...@corp.supernews.com>
> la...@tardis.ed.ac.molar.uk "Alex Hunsley" wrote:
> > That is by design - Ali G, the character, is a parody of someone
> > trying to be hip and in. But the show works on multiple levels:
> > the genius (and the dramatic irony perhaps) is when the Ali G
> > character is used to interview people and to draw them and their
> > absurdities out for all to see. The interviewee, in a lot of cases
> > it seems, is unaware of what is really going on, and is playing
> > along to the character of Ali G.
> >
> > I recall the show where Ali G went to the states and spoke to the
> > head of the NRA (I think it was) - he asked her, mock ignorance,
> > "has anyone been killed by a gun?", to which the head said "I
> > don't know..."!
> NEVER expect Merkins to understand Irony; it's not in their mindset.
Oh, I don't think you can say that. Some of the very best Hollywood
films demonstrate a very keen sense of irony. The Postman springs to
mind.
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/grough/
We have a dog, His name is Grough,
His voice is too, When he says "Woof!"
http://www.grough.freeuk.com/j01.htm -- Photos of Grough and Meg
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
<c98b1ba0.0406...@posting.google.com>
de...@aol.com "DE781" wrote:
> I love Ali G! He's the finest thing to come out of Britain this side
> of Judi Dench! But, anyhoo, even his parody of a parody of ghetto, or
> whatever it's supposed to be, SUCKS! I mean, come on! He sounds
> nothing like the Nubian Princesses of America: Omarosa, Lativah,
> Missy, and Mel B from the Spice Girls! I mean DAMN! I speak better
> mock Ebonics than Ali G does!
I withdraw my earlier comment about Merkins and Irony. (Assuming that
de781 is in Leftpondia.)
Mike Stevens
news:cbeaos$eoj$1...@beta.qmul.ac.uk...
> In uk.culture.language.english Mike Stevens <mike...@which.net> wrote:
> > It may well be that my experience of what this thread is calling
"ghetto" is
> > out of date. But for over 20 years I used to teach in an inner-city
school
> > in Brixton, South London, UK, where there was an extensive population of
> > black youngsters, with their own wide variety of forms of English.
[snip]
> > Many were born in this country, mainly to parents of Caribbean origin.
Most
> > of these were bilingual between standard (white) "sarflund'n" and a form
of
> > patois which they called "Jamaican" but which seemed to me to have only
the
> > most superficial resemblance to what I heard from actual Jamaica-born
> > people. Significantly many of these youngsters at age 11 or 12 were
happy
> > to speak sarflund'n nearly all the time, but a few years later would
adopt
> > mock-Jamaican as (I presumed) a self-identifying decision.
>
> I am assuming this "mock Jamaican" is what others might call "ghetto".
I.e.
> it's a language deliberately adopted and exaggerrated in order to
cultivate
> a "tough guy" image.
Just so. And also to claim their identity as part of a group.
> The raw material from which it would be taken would be
> Jamaican English
Well, at any rate, what those kids *thought* was Jamaican English - as I
said it was/is quite different from what I heard from Jamaican-born people
of any generation.
> but probably also a lot of influence from USA black entertainers.
Possibly.
> What would have changed from your days is that the black population even
in
> places like Brixton
(where I still live)
> which were the heart of Carribean London is now much
> more of direct African origin. Likelihood is if you were teaching these
> days, your black pupils would most likely be of Nigerian origin.
Or Gahnaian, or Ivory Coast or ...... Actually the main Nigerian arrival in
the area was while I was teaching - I well remember the problems that the
aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War caused for us, with kids from families
on both sides of the war, who felt the conflict very fiercely.
The Nigerians were the first main African group to arrive in our area. They
were followed by the expelled African-Asian families (who are outside the
subject of this thread as their basic speech patterns were/are Asian rather
than African in origin), and later by other African groups, including
refugees from wherever that latest trouble-spot was. My wife, who was still
teaching in the area rather more recently than I, as teacher of English as
an Additional Language, encountered large numbers of children from families
feeling the drought in the Horn of Africa.
With very few exceptions, children from the African groups did not take up
what I call "mock-Jamaican" but remained with their African-based speech
patterns with some influence from white Sarflund'n.
But there are still plenty of families in the area whose origins go back to
the Caribbean, although the kids of school age will by now be about the
third London-born generation in their families. From what I hear in the
street, "mock-Jamaican" is still very prevalent among the youngsters,
although the older generations I meet in the pub seem to have more authentic
Caribbean speech patterns, or to speak Sarflund'n, or a blend of the two.
> > Most interesting to me were those youngsters (quite a few of them) who
left
> > our school and went on to study Law. When they came back to visit us
they
> > had invariably changed their speech-pattern entirely, to one which I've
only
> > come across among UK black lawyers, among whom it's almost universal.
[snip]
> For those of you who follow UK politics, a good
> > example is provided by Paul Boateng MP.
>
> Ah, but Boateng is a Ghanaian, not a West Indian. He comes from an upper
> class Ghanaian family. It's possible your black lawyer English is actually
> West African posh school English.
Could be. I envisage there being people in the Law schools who run classes
to give working-class black law students a more middle-class accent. That I
could understand. But what was intriguing that youngsters who went from us
to a number of different law schools all ended up with the *same*
middle-class accent. This, together with your suggestion, conjures up the
vision of a tiny group of folk, all educated in West African posh schools
dashing round all the law schools in SE England spreading the gospel of
their speech-pattern :-)
Dylan Nicholson
> b...@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote in message
news:<20040624.19...@dsl.co.uk>...
> >
> > NEVER expect Merkins to understand Irony; it's not in their mindset.
>
"ironic" too!
I must be drunk. That actually made me laugh. Almost.
David
Who is Atlantis Morrissetti?
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/yds/7bk-0.htm
The Yorkshire Dialect Society: Books
Einde O'Callaghan
> In article <2k1kspF...@uni-berlin.de>, Dylan Nicholson
> <wizo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>"DE781" <de...@aol.com> wrote in message
>>news:c98b1ba0.04062...@posting.google.com...
>>
>>>b...@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote in message
>>
>>news:<20040624.19...@dsl.co.uk>...
>>
>>>>NEVER expect Merkins to understand Irony; it's not in their
>>>>mindset.
>>>
>>>OK, LOOK, MORON...if Ali G is "ironic", then Atlantis Morrissetti
>>>is "ironic" too!
>
>
>>I must be drunk. That actually made me laugh. Almost.
>
>
> Who is Atlantis Morrissetti?
>
regards, Einde O'Callaghan
David
Never heard of him, either.
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/aureole/50-0.htm
2 lb of spuds, 1 lb of mince, some cotton buds, a colour rinse
Alex Hunsley
> b...@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote in message news:<20040624.19...@dsl.co.uk>...
>
>> <10dilkd...@corp.supernews.com>
>> la...@tardis.ed.ac.molar.uk "Alex Hunsley" wrote:
>>
>>
>>>That is by design - Ali G, the character, is a parody of someone trying to be
>>>hip and in. But the show works on multiple levels: the genius (and the dramatic
>>>irony perhaps) is when the Ali G character is used to interview people and to
>>>draw them and their absurdities out for all to see. The interviewee, in a lot
>>>of cases it seems, is unaware of what is really going on, and is playing along
>>>to the character of Ali G.
>>>
>>>I recall the show where Ali G went to the states and spoke to the head of the
>>>NRA (I think it was) - he asked her, mock ignorance, "has anyone been killed
>>>by a gun?", to which the head said "I don't know..."!
>>
>>NEVER expect Merkins to understand Irony; it's not in their mindset.
>
>
Yes, they both feature 'dramatic' irony.
In Morrissetti, it is the fact she sings of irony while clearly not knowing
what it means, whilst we, the audience, do (some of us, anyway). So the song
*does* feature irony - dramatic irony - but not the 'irony' the song writer
intended to refer to!
In Ali G, the dramatic irony is in the fact that the interviewee is (usually)
unaware they are being spun out by parody and respond to bait laid by the Sasha
Cohen (the guy playing Ali G) - he draws them out, unaware, and makes them seem
foolish or speak their mind beyond their usual habits - while we, the audience,
are aware of what is going on and in on the joke.
alex
John Dawkins
David <da...@dacha.freeuk.com> wrote:
> In article <2k2bvfF...@uni-berlin.de>, Einde O'Callaghan
> <einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote:
> > David wrote:
> > > In article <2k1kspF...@uni-berlin.de>, Dylan Nicholson
> > > <wizo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >>"DE781" <de...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > >>news:c98b1ba0.04062...@posting.google.com...
> > >>
> > >>>b...@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote in message
> > >>
> > >>news:<20040624.19...@dsl.co.uk>...
> > >>
> > >>>>NEVER expect Merkins to understand Irony; it's not in their
> > >>>>mindset.
> > >>>
> > >>>OK, LOOK, MORON...if Ali G is "ironic", then Atlantis Morrissetti
> > >>>is "ironic" too!
> > >
> > >
> > >>I must be drunk. That actually made me laugh. Almost.
> > >
> > >
> > > Who is Atlantis Morrissetti?
> > >
> > I presume it's a reference to the singer Alanis Morrissett (sp?)
>
> Never heard of him, either.
Alanis Morissette (a "she") is a Canadian angst-rocker.
Do Canadians do irony?
--
J.
David
That would explain my ignorance: I've no idea what an "angst-rocker"
might be. Does Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes" fit the bill?
> Do Canadians do irony?
I don't know but I reckon the novelist, John Creasey, didn't.
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/cook/24mct-0.htm
4 Mock Curd Tart Recipes
David
> >
> > Never heard of him, either.
> It's a SHE, first of all. SHE'S an American Nubian Princess, like my
> ho Omarosa! And she sings "Isn't It Ironic", "I Wanna Fuck You Like
> An Animal", and that song where she's naked in the video on the
> subway.
I've no idea who your ho Omarosa is, nor what a ho is; nor was I aware
that America had princesses: I thought they'd done away with that sort
of thing back in the C18th.
And I'm sure nice people wouldn't want to listen to her anyway.
And (yet another) don't you think it'd be a good idea to stop referring
to women as "it"?
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/gay/16-0.htm
I believe, I believe, in the One Lord Jackass
http://www.grough.freeuk.com/j02.htm
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