Boro vs. Borough
Jason R. DeCesare
In New York the words "boro" and "borough" seem to be interchangable.
For example:
Brooklyn Boro Hall, Queensboro Plaza;
Interborough Rapid Transit, Queens Borough Public Library, Triborough
Bridge
Anyone know why there is a spelling variant of boro/borough and how it
came to be?
My theory is that it got shortened by New Yorkers.
-Jason
--
"So if you want to prove to someone that New York has it all,
just show them your MetroCard Gold."
-Gov. George Elmer Pataki, MetroCard Gold television ad
SLHinton17
-Jason asks:
<Anyone know why there is a spelling variant of boro/borough and how it
<came to be? My theory is that it got shortened by New Yorkers.
Your theory must be correct: very few non-New Yorkers ever have occasion
to use the word in either form.
Sam Hinton
La Jolla, CA
Albert Marshall
"Jason R. DeCesare" <mile...@erols.com> wrote
>
>In New York the words "boro" and "borough" seem to be interchangable.
>For example:
>Brooklyn Boro Hall, Queensboro Plaza;
>Interborough Rapid Transit, Queens Borough Public Library, Triborough
>Bridge
>
>came to be?
>My theory is that it got shortened by New Yorkers.
>
The informal versions of quite a number of "...boroughs" are "...boros".
I don't know any 'official' "...boros" offhand.
(Should the "S" go inside or outside the quotes in the statement above?)
--
Albert Marshall
Executive French
Language Training for Businesses in Kent
01634 400902
Truly Donovan
SLHinton17 wrote:
>
> -Jason asks:
> <Anyone know why there is a spelling variant of boro/borough and how it
> <came to be? My theory is that it got shortened by New Yorkers.
It seems to me that the last time we went around on this, the conclusion was
that most of the damage was done by the Post Office.
> Your theory must be correct: very few non-New Yorkers ever have occasion
> to use the word in either form.
New Yorkers spell the word itself as "borough," as in "the borough of
Manhattan." As for whether anyone else has occasion to use it, the USA,
including California, is chock-a-block full of towns whose names end in "boro"
or "borough."
So the theory, and your assessment of it, would seem to me to be quite covered
in liquid.
--
Truly Donovan
reply to truly at lunemere dot com
Bob Cunningham
Albert Marshall <alb...@execfrog.demon.co.uk> said:
[...]
>The informal versions of quite a number of "...boroughs" are "...boros".
>I don't know any 'official' "...boros" offhand.
>
>(Should the "S" go inside or outside the quotes in the statement above?)
In an ideal world nothing would go inside quotes unless it was part of
what was being quoted. If you follow that simple rule, as the British
tend to do more than the Americans do, you'll write "...borough"s and
"...boro"s.
Most Americans are sometimes illogical about what they put inside
quotes. They even go to the ridiculous extreme of putting a period
inside quotes in a statement like:
A short form of "borough", when used as a part of town
names, is "boro."
Bob Cunningham
njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
>On Sun, 03 Aug 1997 04:33:01 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
>wrote:
>
[...]
>>In an ideal world nothing would go inside quotes unless it was part of
>>what was being quoted. If you follow that simple rule, as the British
>>tend to do more than the Americans do, you'll write "...borough"s and
>>"...boro"s.
>
>Does anybody, anywhere, actually do that?
I do, and I see no other way to do it that makes sense.
>>Most Americans are sometimes illogical about what they put inside
>>quotes. They even go to the ridiculous extreme of putting a period
>>inside quotes in a statement like:
>>
>> A short form of "borough", when used as a part of town
>> names, is "boro."
>
>We also put commas inside quotation marks:
Yes, I know; I used to use crazy punctuation like that when I had to do
so in order to conform. After I retired and could punctuate rationally,
I began to do so, especially after I came across the British rules and
realized that I was not alone in my preference.
>"A short form of 'borough,' when used as part of town names, is
>'boro.'"
>
>And I think we outnumber you....
But who knows the composition of your ranks? How many people who are
bound by convention would like to punctuate rationally if they could?
This has been a perennial topic of discussion in alt.usage.english, and
the discussion has grown somewhat heated at times. The a.u.e FAQ
devotes 22 lines to it starting at line 2444. It says, in part:
| Fowler was a strong advocate of logical placement of
| punctuation marks, i.e. only placing them inside the quotation
| marks if they were part of the quoted matter. This scheme has
| gained ground, and is especially popular among computer users,
| and others who wish to make clear exactly what is and what is
| not being quoted. Logical placement is accepted by many more
| publishers outside than inside the U.S.
The reason that's usually stated for putting things inside quotes that
don't logically belong there is that in the days of hand-set type
printers liked to place the little commas and periods where they'd be
least susceptible to damage.
So you who outnumber me are following a convention that was established
by printers, not writers, to satisfy the needs of a technology that is
no longer commonly used.
Albert Marshall
Mimi Kahn <njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com> wrote
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>>The informal versions of quite a number of "...boroughs" are "...boros".
>>>I don't know any 'official' "...boros" offhand.
>>>
>>>(Should the "S" go inside or outside the quotes in the statement above?)
>>
>>what was being quoted. If you follow that simple rule, as the British
>>tend to do more than the Americans do, you'll write "...borough"s and
>>"...boro"s.
>
>Does anybody, anywhere, actually do that?
>
>>quotes. They even go to the ridiculous extreme of putting a period
>>inside quotes in a statement like:
>>
>> A short form of "borough", when used as a part of town
>> names, is "boro."
>
>We also put commas inside quotation marks:
>
>'boro.'"
>
>And I think we outnumber you....
>
(and those of Ireland and of a recent addition to China) which includes
a helluva lot more native English speakers than the bit of North America
governed from Washington.
At a quick estimate I make that 3:1 in favour of "".
Anyone got time to check the combined populations of Britain, Ireland,
Australia, Canada (probably)and the English speaking populations of
India, Singapore, Pakistan, otherbits of Asia and about half of Africa.
Bob Cunningham
Albert Marshall <alb...@execfrog.demon.co.uk> said:
>Mimi Kahn <njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com> wrote
[...]
>>We also put commas inside quotation marks:
>>
>>"A short form of 'borough,' when used as part of town names, is
>>'boro.'"
>>
>>And I think we outnumber you....
>>
>Mimi, sweetie, I'm going to invoke the population of the Commonwealth
>(and those of Ireland and of a recent addition to China) which includes
>a helluva lot more native English speakers than the bit of North America
>governed from Washington.
>
>At a quick estimate I make that 3:1 in favour of "".
>
>Anyone got time to check the combined populations of Britain, Ireland,
>Australia, Canada (probably)and the English speaking populations of
>India, Singapore, Pakistan, otherbits of Asia and about half of Africa.
Much as I appreciate and thank you for your support, Albert, I fear
you've fallen prey to a common fallacy. I'm a little sorry you said
*native* English speakers.
I made a lengthy posting to a.u.e on this subject a couple of years ago.
Mark Israel asked permission to use it in the a.u.e FAQ and it was in
the next few versions. Apparently he decided it was taking too much
room, so he removed it, leaving the following statement -- starting at
line 5799 of the current FAQ -- to mark its demise:
From the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1995 yearbook, Bob
Cunningham estimated the number of mother-tongue English-
speakers in the world at 326,652,000, of whom 69% live in
the United States.
Here is the posting in full (fixed-pitch font recommended):
Origin: MOGUR - 1011 - AltUsagEngUS
To: ALL
From: BOB CUNNINGHAM Public
Date: 03/14/95 at 22:19
Re: ENGLISH DISTRIBUTION 01
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the past few weeks there has been some discussion on
a.u.e. of the distribution of English speakers in the world.
After Cornell Kimball called attention to the fact that there is
an excellent table of language distribution in the 1995
Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook, I have given considerable
attention to that table.
I have formed from that table a new table that contains the
number of English speakers in each country in the world, and I
have sorted the new table in descending order of number of mother-
tongue speakers. The new table also includes other categories of
English speakers, and those countries that have the other
categories, but no mother-tongue speakers, are sorted in
alphabetical order at the end.
From the new table, the total number of mother-tongue English
speakers in the world is 326,651,500. When we consider that some
of the numbers in the original table are rounded to the nearest
ten thousand, or perhaps one hundred thousand, we realize that the
least significant figures in that total don't have much meaning.
A key point in the earlier discussions had to do with my
assertion that the overwhelming majority of native (mother-tongue)
English speakers live in The United States of America. The
Britannica figures yield the result that 69% of native English
speakers live in the United States, which clearly confirms my
assertion.
Another point that arises each time this subject is discussed
is typified by the remark, "How can that be? Look at the hundreds
of millions of English speakers in the Indian subcontinent!" The
Encyclopedia Britannica table shows a total of 310,000 native
speakers of English in India, This is less than one-tenth of one
percent of the total number of native-English speakers in the
world.
I didn't include one entry from the Britannica data, and that
was under the heading "Trinidad English" for the country "Trinidad
and Tobago". Trinidad English must be so different from other
varieties of English that it didn't merit inclusion under
"English (Lingua Franca)". Can anyone comment on Trinidad English
and its relationship to English?
Here is the derived table:
Number of Speakers Country
English English English English
Mother (Lingua Bilingual Creole
Tongue Franca)
224,900,000 253,410,000 United States
56,830,000 United Kingdom
17,700,000 696,000 Canada
15,188,000 17,300,000 Australia
3,620,000 South Africa
3,340,000 Ireland
3,205,000 150,000 New Zealand
310,000 30,000,000 India
240,000 Zimbabwe
132,000 1,890,000 Hong Kong
106,000 160,000 Belize
100,000 6,000,000 220,000 Malaysia
100,000 Spain
87,000 Jersey
85,000 Virgin Islands
80,000 France
70,000 Isle of Man
70,000 Japan
64,000 Guernsey
64,000 Israel
62,000 Bermuda
54,000 144,000 Guam
32,000 Sweden
28,000 114,000 St. Lucia
27,000 237,000 Barbados
26,000 Gibraltar
23,000 Norway
19,000 Puerto Rico
18,000 Denmark
15,000 Netherlands
Antilles
10,000 1,820,000 Sri Lanka
10,000 99,000 Brunei
8,000 Malta
6,000 Aruba
4,000 Luxembourg
3,000 19,000 Dominica
2,200 41,900 Northern Mariana
Islands
2,000 54,000 American Samoa
2,000 Macau
2,000 Mauritius
2,000 Monaco
2,000 Seychelles
1,000 Andorra
1,000 85,000 Western Samoa
800 10,100 Nauru
500 Micronesia
63,000 Antigua and Barbuda
200,000 Bahamas
3,100,000 Bangladesh
580,000 Botswana
40,000 Colombia
66,000 Costa Rica
160,000 Fiji
2,000 French Guiana
92,000 Grenada
572,000 Guyana
11,000 Honduras
2,350,000 Jamaica
2,100,000 Kenya
480,000 2,100,000 Liberia
490,000 Malawi
130,000 Namibia
42,000 Nicaragua
14,000,000 33,000,000 Nigeria
15,000,000 Pakistan
362,000 Panama
60,000 Papua New Guinea
36,000,000 Philippines
700,000 4,400,000 Sierra Leone
1,097,000 Singapore
42,000 St. Kitts and Nevis
109,000 St. Vincent and the
Grenadines
800,000 Tanzania
36,000 Trinidad and Tobago
280,000 Tunisia
180,000 Uganda
800,000 Zambia
(End copy of March 1995 posting)
Some people may object, as some did in 1995, to the lack of any
bilingual speakers shown under "United Kingdom". The Britannica
explains that they report only what the subject countries report to
them. The reporter from the United Kingdom chose to ignore bilingual
speakers in his count.
Truly Donovan
Bob Cunningham wrote:
> The reason that's usually stated for putting things inside quotes that
> don't logically belong there is that in the days of hand-set type
> printers liked to place the little commas and periods where they'd be
> least susceptible to damage.
That is the reason that is sometimes stated. Very few of us actually
believe it because the fact of the matter is that the metal is *not*
susceptible to damage any more than the quote would be susceptible to
damage, were it to follow the period. Bob likes this explanation,
however, because it gives him a chance to launch the following:
> So you who outnumber me are following a convention that was established
> by printers, not writers, to satisfy the needs of a technology that is
> no longer commonly used.
My sources, who generally speaking know a lot more about the topic of
composition processes and their history than I have seen come from Bob,
generally attribute the origins of the practice to aesthetics, especially
dating from the early days of metal composition, when intercharacter
spacing was quite wide and the period appeared to float away from its
rightful position.
Those of us who continue to follow the practice in spite of the outcries
that "it's not logical!" do so because we have learned that *many* of our
readers consider it *wrong* when we do not follow the practice, and we do
not care to muddy our basic message by introducing clanging notes of
discord.
Justin B Rye
(with apologies to those whose references my newsreader is still eating)
Albert Marshall said in <3tZREBAh...@execfrog.demon.co.uk>:
>>>I don't know any 'official' "...boros" offhand.
>>>(Should the "S" go inside or outside the quotes in the statement above?)
Bob Cunningham said in <33e509c3....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>:
>>In an ideal world nothing would go inside quotes unless it was part of
>>what was being quoted. If you follow that simple rule, as the British
>>tend to do more than the Americans do, you'll write "...borough"s and
>>"...boro"s.
Mimi Kahn said in <33e412b7...@news.mindspring.com>:
>Does anybody, anywhere, actually do that?
Yes. In fields such as linguistics or computing, it can really matter
whether you say "this," or "this", so down with the copy-saboteurs who
"correct" one into the other! See Geoffrey K Pullum's "Punctuation
and human freedom" (collected in "The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax").
> We also put commas inside quotation marks: [...]
> And I think we outnumber you....
Ah, yes; but in an _ideal_ world... More ontopically, I'll just raise the
subject of the UK's Middlesbrough and Edinburgh. I can't be so sure about
the former, but the latter is pronounced by its inhabitants as a "borough"
(/EdInb@r@/ or /Ed@mbr@/), not as a rhyme for Pittsburgh or Ngorongoro.
--
JBR - not really @SPAMTRAP
Ankh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)
Bob Cunningham
njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
>On Sun, 03 Aug 1997 09:13:32 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
>wrote:
[...]
>It may be "logical" to put commas and periods outside of quotation
>marks, but this practice looks wrong to me, and it always will. (And,
>on this side of the pond, it *is* wrong.)
In the absence of any dictatorial authority it can't be said of *any*
usage that it "*is* wrong".
Not only that, but American style manuals imply that in some cases the
period or comma *should* be placed outside the quotes.
_The Chicago Manual of Style_ (14th Edition) (CMOS), in Section 5.12 on
page 161 says:
Quoted words and phrases falling at the end of a sentence
can, in the vast majority of cases, take the terminating
period within the closing quotation marks without
confusion or misunderstanding [...]. In those rare
instances when confusion is likely, the period not only
may, but perhaps should, be placed after the quotation
mark.
In many cases the possibility of confusion may not be immediately
apparent. CMOS has the example ("which may be imagined as being
included in a work of textual criticism"):
The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando has long
been regarded as reading "Good sir, I do in friendship
counsel you".
They explain that "the location of the period warns against the
incorrect assumption that the quoted line ends with a period".
I don't think any confusion can ever result from placing the period
after the quotation when it's not part of what's being quoted. For the
sake of consistency, and to avoid the possibility of overlooking
possible confused interpretation, we Americans would be well-advised to
convert to the British convention. (I already have.)
The current (March 1984) edition of the _United States Government
Printing Office Style Manual_ says in Section 8.145:
In congressional and certain other classes of work showing
amendments, and in courtwork with quoted language,
punctuation marks are printed after the quotation marks
when not a part of the quoted matter.
In other words, where clarity is essential rational punctuation is used.
>I've never known this language of ours to be logical, anyway.
Many illogical aspects of English would be nearly impossible to fix
because of the power of idiomatic usage. The weird American convention
for placing periods and commas with respect to quotes could easily be
fixed without seriously offending readers' tastes.
In William and Mary Morris's _Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage_
they say:
[...] though all reason and logic favor putting the
quotation mark before the period in the examples given,
one would have to travel to England to find them so
handled. Generations of American typesetters have
insisted that the quotes always fall outside periods
(commas, too, for that matter) regardless of the sense
of the sentence. The theory is that the quotes help
fill the small spot of white that would be left if the
period or comma came outside the quote. To see the
ridiculousness of this argument, you need only read a
book or magazine printed in England. The eye quickly
becomes used to quotation marks put where they
logically belong and you soon become accustomed to
that "small spot of white" that is supposed to be so
bothersome. Realistically, however, matters are not
likely to change. American printers have been
handling copy this way for many decades and they
aren't likely to change now just because a few voices
are raised in a plea for logic and reason.
I find it interesting that while a number of usage manuals^ say that
printers are concerned about damage to the comma and period when they
are placed after the quotation mark, the Morrises' manual is the only
one I have seen that -- while still blaming printers for the American
silliness -- gives a different reason for the printers' preference.
_The Chicago Manual of Style_ is copyright 1993 by The University of
Chicago.
The _Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage_ is copyright 1975 by
William Morris and Mary Morris.
^ E-mail me for a list.
Gene Nygaard
ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham) wrote:
>njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
>>On Sun, 03 Aug 1997 09:13:32 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
>>wrote:
>[...]
>>It may be "logical" to put commas and periods outside of quotation
>>marks, but this practice looks wrong to me, and it always will. (And,
>>on this side of the pond, it *is* wrong.)
>In the absence of any dictatorial authority it can't be said of *any*
>usage that it "*is* wrong".
>Not only that, but American style manuals imply that in some cases the
>period or comma *should* be placed outside the quotes.
One area where this is generally followed in the U.S. is in drafting
of bills in our various state legislatures and in Congress. Some of
these publish guidelines which explain this usage, which you could
also use to support the point you are making.
Gene Nygaard
Dr. Peter Kittel
In article <33f5eea6...@nntp.ix.netcom.com> ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham) writes:
>
>I find it interesting that while a number of usage manuals^ say that
>printers are concerned about damage to the comma and period when they
>are placed after the quotation mark, the Morrises' manual is the only
>one I have seen that -- while still blaming printers for the American
>silliness -- gives a different reason for the printers' preference.
There's obviously another difference: You place spaces around the
"--" dashes (as we do it in German), yet it seems to be American style
to omit these spaces, which I find again illogical. Any reasoning for
that?
--
Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS
Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: pet...@pios.de
Back from vacation, did anything happen?
This account will soon change!
Forman Bobsled
> On Wed, 06 Aug 1997 00:18:41 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
> wrote:
>
> >I noticed that a few other posters used "[...]" after I did, but I've
> >wondered if people understood the rationale behind the form.
If I remember correctly, textbooks I've studied usually
do it this way (to avoid too much duplication when
repeating stuff from earlier in the book):
blah blah blah
.
.
.
yada yada yada
but I think I like [...] better. The square brackets
are not needed since the ellipses line should have no
">" at the left margin, but the brackets don't hurt.
Robert M. Wilson
In article <33ebb2f9...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
s.m...@merde.ix.netcom.com (Polar) wrote:
[Other material removed]
>
>While I'm on the subject of conventions, I wish people wouldn't
> use _blah blah_ for emphasis/italics. It's harder & slower to read.
>I use *blah blah*.
>
>
I used to use *asterisks* also, but I received a note rquesting that I use
something else. Apparently on some receivers they were coming out as heavy
vertical lines. Now I use 'single quotes' (apostrophes). Comments welcome.
Robert Lieblich
Dr. Peter Kittel wrote:
>
> In article <33f5eea6...@nntp.ix.netcom.com> ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham) writes:
> >
> >I find it interesting that while a number of usage manuals^ say that
> >printers are concerned about damage to the comma and period when they
> >are placed after the quotation mark, the Morrises' manual is the only
> >one I have seen that -- while still blaming printers for the American
> >silliness -- gives a different reason for the printers' preference.
>
> There's obviously another difference: You place spaces around the
> "--" dashes (as we do it in German), yet it seems to be American style
> to omit these spaces, which I find again illogical. Any reasoning for
> that?
The explanation for the typewritten dashes without spaces around them,
which look--like--this. is that they most accurately mimic the en dashes
used by most printers in most fonts, which have no spaces around them.
When I was taught typing in secondary school more than four decades ago,
at a time when the course was thought to be mainly for future
secreataries, the double hyphen without spaces, was the standard, and
the teachers marked off for any variant. But that was when computers
still used vacuum tubes and electric typewriters were still new.
Nowadays, many typists use a single hyphen character with spaces on both
sides to represent a dash - like - this. I have taken to using the
double hyphen with spaces -- because -- it is most suited to Usenet and
also tends to eliminate those long spaces at the end of some lines in
all kinds of typing.
I know of no current usage that is standard, so I do what I think best.
Don't we all?
Bob Lieblich <lieb...@erols.com>
Steve Lewin
In message <33ed32e3...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham) writes:
> s.m...@merde.ix.netcom.com (Polar) said:
< snip >
> >While I'm on the subject of conventions, I wish people wouldn't
> > use _blah blah_ for emphasis/italics. It's harder & slower to read.
> >I use *blah blah*.
It's not really something that bothers me but I do agree that
underscores are slower to read.
< snip >
> In choosing between underscores and asterisks it might be well to
> remember that some editors change color within certain enclosures, and
> that some readers may find one or the other objectionable for that
> reason. A certain valued a.u.e contributor told either me or us about
> that sometime ago. I think I remember that asterisks caused a color
> change, but I don't know whether he mentioned underscores.
There is such a wide variety of software available that it is far too
difficult to cater for everyone's preferences and in any case the
behaviour of such editors is usually configurable.
> In connection with that, I wish everyone would use right angle brackets
> for tagging quoted lines. Almost everyone does. That convention causes
> the quoted lines to appear in blue in my editor and I like that a lot.
> It's a little annoying to me when the quoted lines are the same color as
> the other text. This even happens when someone uses right angle
> brackets but precedes them with one or more blank spaces.
> A colon or a vertical bar in column one also cause the line to turn
> blue, but another thing wrong with oddball quote tags is that it makes
> attributions a little harder to unscramble. I think it would be a fine
> thing if those who don't use right angle brackets would fall in line
> with the overwhelming majority who do. (I'm reasonably certain they
> won't.)
Unfortunately there are those of us who have little choice in these
matters. The software I use at home is willing to quote normally with
> but messes up references (as we have discussed previously). The
software I'm obliged to use at work has a terrrible editor and
insists on using 2 hyphens for quoted text so I tend to avoid using
it for Usenet posting because I'm too idle to manually change them to
something sensible.
Steve
Truly Donovan
> >It may be "logical" to put commas and periods outside of quotation
> >marks, but this practice looks wrong to me, and it always will. (And,
> >on this side of the pond, it *is* wrong.)
> In the absence of any dictatorial authority it can't be said of *any*
> usage that it "*is* wrong".
If you genuinely believe that, why do you even bother to engage in
discussions of rightness and wrongness? I understand that you consider
yourself a descriptivist, but then you come unhinged at the use of the
word "reared," so you're only a descriptivist when you choose to be.
That's okay with me, because I'm a situational descriptivist, too, but
then you don't hear me going around making statements about what happens
in the absence of any dictatorial authority. Of course, around here,
there *IS* a dictatorial authority, so maybe that's the difference....
Albert Marshall
Mimi Kahn <njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com> wrote
>On Fri, 08 Aug 1997 21:59:44 +0000 (GMT), bas
><b...@cybernexus.demon.co.uk> wrote --
>
>-- at great length -- concerning his theories about my inadequacies as
>a Web designer.
>
>He has begun to remind me of someone who believes that his particular
>religion is the only path to God.
>
Please could the two of you take your bickering to e-mail, or to the
alt.html hierarchy.
nancy g.
Lee Rudolph wrote:
>> However can you say such a thing?
> He didn't think, he just flung words down on the page however.
Friends of mine who live in Kentucky would undoubtedly rephrase
the above and say,
He just flung words down on the paper ever-which-way.
Not sure about the grammatical construction of that sentence,
but it certainly removes any ambiguity about its meaning!
Nancy G.
who's also heard the same people use the word "ever-who" in conversation
nancy g.
bas wrote:
> John Nurick wrote:
>> bas wrote:
>>> "However" always has a comma after it (on-topic).
> OK, I concede, not *always*, but his usage of "however"
> did need a comma.
Not at all. He's used the word "however" in his sentence to mean
"how" or "in what way" and with that meaning it absolutely does
*not* call for the use of a comma. You wouldn't say "How, can you
say such a thing?" would you? (Although I do admit that the use of
the word "however" in that sentence was pretty ambiguous, since it
could quite properly be interepreted the way you've done it).
That doesn't negate his point, however. (Unintentional use of
the word in that sentence, btw). There are *many* uses of the
word which don't require any punctuation after it at all:
I like chicken however it's prepared.
I want it completed, however long it takes to finish.
Ship it out today, however you have to do it.
I checked my dictionary, which gives five different definitions
and examples for the word. One is archaic; of the remaining four,
three do not require commas and one may require either a comma or
a semicolon, depending on context and placement within the sentence.
Hardly the same as your statement that however *always* requires
a comma after it.
Nancy G.
However, this is just my opinion, however correct it may be.
Lee Rudolph
j.nu...@ialday.ipexpay.omcay (John Nurick) writes:
>>"However" always has a comma after it (on-topic).
>
>However can you say such a thing?
He didn't think, he just flung words down on the page however.
Lee Rudolph
Keith C. Ivey
njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) wrote:
>I suspect it's individual style. My habit with a typewriter was
>always to do a dash like--so, with no spaces, but that caused a long
>non-breaking element in e-mail and Usenet posts, so I trained myself
>to do it with -- spaces.
Same here. I've started using the spaces only this year.
>If I'm working with a word processor or coding HTML, I use ALT+0151
>for an em-dash, which some of you probably won't get, but, for those
>of you who do, it looks like葉his.
In printed documents, there seem to be two styles for dashes to
set off parenthetical elements. The usual US convention is to
use an em dash with no spaces. Another convention, which seems
to be used more often outside the US, is to use an en dash (half
the width of an em dash) with space on both sides.
For an explanation of why using — for dashes in HTML is a
bad idea (an explanation more civil than that given by bas), see
http://d1.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/iso8859/iso8859-pointers.html#unass
(it's written by Alan Flavell, an occasional contributor to
AUE).
Keith C. Ivey <kci...@cpcug.org> Washington, DC
Contributing Editor/Webmaster
The Editorial Eye <http://www.eeicom.com/eye/>
Peter Schultz
nancy g. wrote:
>
> bas wrote:
>
> > nancy g. wrote
> >> He just flung words down on the paper ever-which-way.
> >>
> > Are you sure he doesn't say "every-which-way"?
>
> Positive.
My West Virginia friend even says "ever-which-a-way."
John Nurick
>"However" always has a comma after it (on-topic).
However can you say such a thing?
John
I dislocated my e-mail address, and the doctor says it will be
six months before I can see a specialist.
nancy g.
bas wrote:
> nancy g. wrote
(predicting what some Southern friends of mine might say)
>> He just flung words down on the paper ever-which-way.
>>
>> Not sure about the grammatical construction of that sentence,
>> but it certainly removes any ambiguity about its meaning!
> Are you sure he doesn't say "every-which-way"?
Positive. That's undoubtedly what is *meant* by the expression,
but it's spoken in the unique dialect of English found mainly in
the southern states of the U.S., and the word "every" is quite often
pronounced "ever", as in the example above.
Nancy G.
who speaks New England Yankee English
(the Boston subtype) most of the time, unless
I've been spending too much time with my
Southern relatives, at which point I apparently
begin to speak a blend that's incomprehensible
to just about everyone.
Padraig Breathnach
Robert M. Wilson wrote:
>
> >While I'm on the subject of conventions, I wish people wouldn't
> > use _blah blah_ for emphasis/italics. It's harder & slower to read.
> >I use *blah blah*.
>
use
> something else. Apparently on some receivers they were coming out as
heavy
> vertical lines. Now I use 'single quotes' (apostrophes). Comments
welcome.
>
well-crafted sentence does not need visual aids? Let us be careful here: we
might soon be discussing the proper use of emoticons.
PB.
dave
nancy g. wrote:
> He just flung words down on the paper ever-which-way.
How about: "He just flung words down on the paper willy-nilly".
(Excuse my post-inverted-commas period... was a consensus ever reached
on that? It certainly seems more logical, and perhaps the way it will
eventually go, to have the period outside.)
-dave.
Adrian Tan
Steve Lewin wrote:
>
> In message <33ed32e3...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
> ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham) writes:
>
> > s.m...@merde.ix.netcom.com (Polar) said:
>
> > > use _blah blah_ for emphasis/italics. It's harder & slower to read.
> > >I use *blah blah*.
>
> underscores are slower to read.
I suppose one other problem of sorts is that it's not immediately
obvious what underscores signify. Polar posed two options -- emphasis or
italics --, and, for a third, I recently read a post in which the author
took them as the convention for underlining.
> > In choosing between underscores and asterisks it might be well to
> > remember that some editors change color within certain enclosures, and
> > that some readers may find one or the other objectionable for that
> > reason.
Aside from colour change, another issue is that there is, after all, a
difference between "emphasis" and "italics", although italics are often
used to represent spoken emphasis.
haye...@alpha.unisa.ac.za
In article <33F031...@spamguard.extro.ucc.su.oz.au> Adrian Tan <as...@spamguard.extro.ucc.su.oz.au> writes:
>> > >While I'm on the subject of conventions, I wish people wouldn't
>> > > use _blah blah_ for emphasis/italics. It's harder & slower to read.
>> > >I use *blah blah*.
>>
>> It's not really something that bothers me but I do agree that
>> underscores are slower to read.
>I suppose one other problem of sorts is that it's not immediately
>obvious what underscores signify. Polar posed two options -- emphasis or
>italics --, and, for a third, I recently read a post in which the author
>took them as the convention for underlining.
The convention probably originates with Wordstar, in which _underlined_ text
appeared thus on the screen, but was printed as underlined (or underscored -
is there a difference?)
A typesetter would naturally assume that anything underlines was to be set
in italics, so _ could easily be taken as a substitute for italics. And as
italics are often used for emphasis, it could be used for emphasis as well,
though I would be more inclined to use them for journal or book titles.
Donna Richoux
Albert Marshall <alb...@execfrog.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[snipped muchly]
> "Frog", as many will recognise, is the English slang term for
> "Frenchman" (on topic).
This reminds me of the topic a little while ago about things that should
be obvious but only dawn on us embarrassingly late in life. I've known
for ages that "frog" is a nickname for the French but I never really
knew why -- I assumed it was a derogatory reference to its amphibious
nature or perhaps the French eating habits. Only when I got to Holland
and started hearing people say "frongk" did it finally dawn on me that
"frog" and "franc" sound almost the same.
(I suppose I must point out that when I speak English, I pronounce
"France" with a very American "a", which may or may not be /&/, as best
I can read the FAQ. Actually the FAQ says /&</, is that deliberate or a
typo?)
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
BILLM...@delphi.com
Quoting dave<graves from a message in alt.usage.english
>How about: "He just flung words down on the paper willy-nilly".
>(Excuse my post-inverted-commas period... was a consensus ever reached
>on that? It certainly seems more logical, and perhaps the way it will
>eventually go, to have the period outside.)
Since it is a question, I'd go for
How about "He just flung words down on the paper willy-nilly"?
Bill McCray
Lexington, KY
(BillMcCray at delphi dot com)
BILLM...@delphi.com
Quoting bas<bas from a message in alt.usage.english
>I'm sure this thread died some time over the weekend... However,
>we never reached a consensus on the "period inside/outside" thing,
>but I think we decided that the British put the period outside,
>and everyone else puts it inside...
That's not quite true. I am American. Since sometime in the late
60s, I have placed periods and commas, as well as question marks and
exclamation marks, where they logically belong. This was before I
found out that the British did it that way. No one has ever questioned
this usage. I have talked several Americans into doing it this way
also.
I do not do it "the American way".
Bob Cunningham
(The posting I'm responding to has been in my "Answer Candidates" folder
for over a week now. Faced daily with the decision whether to finally
respond to it or simply delete it, I've now figuratively tossed a coin
and decided to respond.)
njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
>On Wed, 06 Aug 1997 00:19:58 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
>wrote:
>
>>njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
>>
>>>On Tue, 05 Aug 1997 09:23:44 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
>>>>
>>>>>On Sun, 03 Aug 1997 09:13:32 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
>>>>>wrote:
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>>>In many cases the possibility of confusion may not be immediately
>>>>apparent. [_The Chicago Manual of Style 14th Edition (CMOS)]has
>>>>the example ("which may be imagined as being included in a work of
>>>>textual criticism"):
>>>>
>>>> The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando has long
>>>> been regarded as reading "Good sir, I do in friendship
>>>> counsel you".
>>>>
>>>>They explain that "the location of the period warns against the
>>>>incorrect assumption that the quoted line ends with a period".
>>>
>>>I would have written that, "Good sir, I do in friendship counsel
>>>you...."
>>
>>That would be doubly wrong. Not only does it leave the ambiguity that
>>CMOS removed by putting the period after the quote, but it implies that
>>the quoted line contains either an ellipsis or something that you are
>>omitting and replacing by the ellipsis. Neither is true. The line
>>contains absolutely nothing more than
>>
>> Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you
>>
>>It seems clear that there is a continuation, but it's not on *that*
>>line, the line that is hypothetically being subjected to "textual
>>criticism", so your ellipsis is inappropriate.
>
>To me, an ellipsis indicates that there is more, not necessarily on
>the same line, but continuing from the word where the quotation
>stopped.
I'll try once more to explain the point of the example in _The Chicago
Manual of Style_: It was chosen to illustrate the principle that in
textual criticism a single line may be the subject of discussion to the
total exclusion of anything that may appear in other lines, and when
that is the case it is important that nothing appear within the quotes
that is not part of THAT LINE.
>Says the Concise Ocford:
>
>ellipsis n. (also ellipse) (pl. ellipses)
>1 the omission from a sentence of words needed to complete the
>construction or sense.
The construction and the sense have nothing to do with their reason for
giving the example. The line is simply a string of characters whose
meaning has nothing to do with their point.
>2 the omission of a sentence at the end of a paragraph.
>3 a set of three dots etc. indicating an omission
>
>I see nothing about the missing words having to be in the same line.
All of this merely makes more apparent your lack of desire to understand
the point of the example.
If you want to say any more about this, please start by explaining what
it is you don't understand about the statement that they are considering
the line from the standpoint of textual criticism, that all they are
concerned about is the contents of -- that is, the string of characters
contained in -- THAT LINE, and that to place the sentence-ending period
within the quotes could be taken erroneously to mean that THAT LINE --
that string of characters -- ends with a period.
Brian J Goggin
On Fri, 15 Aug 1997 14:15:40 +0100, John Davies
<jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[...]
>This identification of a nation with what it supposedly eats is not
>confined to the French: "Kraut" for German derives of course from
>Sauerkraut, and in the Royal Navy "haggis yaffler", or simply "Haggis"
>for a Scot and "oggy yaffler" for a Cornishman were more colourful
>alternatives to "Jock" and "Jan". (An "oggy", BTW, is a Cornish pasty).
>And "Spud", the usual nickname for anyone called Murphy, derives from
>the Irish attachment to the potato.
>
>Can anyone think of similar examples?
>--
Les rosbifs?
bjg
Bob Cunningham
John Davies <jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> said:
[...]
>This identification of a nation with what it supposedly eats is not
>confined to the French: "Kraut" for German derives of course from
>Sauerkraut, and in the Royal Navy "haggis yaffler", or simply "Haggis"
>for a Scot and "oggy yaffler" for a Cornishman were more colourful
>alternatives to "Jock" and "Jan". (An "oggy", BTW, is a Cornish pasty).
>And "Spud", the usual nickname for anyone called Murphy, derives from
>the Irish attachment to the potato.
>
>Can anyone think of similar examples?
Years ago I heard "bean" used to refer to a person from Mexico. My
response at the time, after the usage had been explained, was "Oh. I
thought you were talking about a Navy man".
Bob Cunningham
njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
>On Fri, 15 Aug 1997 06:04:59 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
>wrote:
[...]
>>If you want to say any more about this, please start by explaining what
>>it is you don't understand about the statement that they are considering
>>the line from the standpoint of textual criticism, that all they are
>>concerned about is the contents of -- that is, the string of characters
>>contained in -- THAT LINE, and that to place the sentence-ending period
>>within the quotes could be taken erroneously to mean that THAT LINE --
>>that string of characters -- ends with a period.
>
>Please do not presume to specify how and what I post to this
>newsgroup.
How many careful users of English would call my courteous request a
specification?
>Please try to bear in mind that the convention of where to place
>periods and commas vis-à-vis quotation marks is not the same in the
>U.S. as it is in Britain.
In the section I quoted from, _The Chicago Manual of Style_ (CMOS) is
discussing American rules. The example I quoted is their illustration
of the occasional necessity for American writers to depart from those
American rules. British usage has nothing to do with this discussion.
Your bringing this up is yet another indication that you don't seem to
understand the point of the CMOS example.
>In any event, I'm perfectly content to agree to disagree. Can you
>manage to do that without impugning my motivation?
Since you have given no indication that you have tried to understand the
point of the CMOS example, I question whether you could state clearly
what it is we are to agree to disagree about. I invite you to try.
For anyone who has not seen earlier posts in this thread and is curious
to know what this discussion is all about, the CMOS example I'm
referring to is in the 14th Edition, Section 5.12. It's the third
example:
The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando has long been
regarded as reading "Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you".
The assumption is that the statement is being made in a context of
textual criticism, so it is necessary that the textual contents of the
first line be stated precisely. If the period were placed within the
quotation marks, precision would be lost and ambiguity would result.
There would be no way to tell whether the first line of Le Beau's
warning ends with a period or the period is the one marking the end of
the sentence starting with "The first line".
Ms Kahn implied that she would have written:
The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orland has long been
regarded as reading
"Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you ...."
I commented that, given the condition that textual criticism of the
first line is the context, her rendition can only be taken to mean
either that the first line of Le Beau's warning contains an ellipsis or
that the first line contains words whose omission is signaled by the
ellipsis. Neither of those interpretations would be correct. Also, the
fourth dot in her rendition leaves the same ambiguity that CMOS is
trying to illustrate.
Maybe before we can agree to disagree about something, we need to first
agree about what is meant by "textual criticism".
(Again for the benefit of newcomers, I should mention again that I am an
American who prefers and uses British punctuation conventions. That
explains why I put the period outside the quotes in the previous
sentence, but it has nothing to do with the current issue of this
thread.)
O&W
Bob Cunningham <ad...@lafn.org> wrote in article
<3418f092....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
> >>>>
> >>>> The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando has long
> >>>> been regarded as reading "Good sir, I do in friendship
> >>>> counsel you".
> >>>>
> >>>>They explain that "the location of the period warns against the
> >>>>incorrect assumption that the quoted line ends with a period".
> >>>
> >>>I would have written that, "Good sir, I do in friendship counsel
> >>>you...."
>>
> >I see nothing about the missing words having to be in the same line.
The reference above could have been written
LeBeau's warning to Orlando has been regarded as reading
"Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you" (252).
This is according to the Harbrace Handbook ( toward which I lean , because
I worked with John Hodges once). Or of course, if you recast and use
indention rather than quotation marks to set off your quote, the problem
does not arise. Harbrace also suggests that when only one line of poetry
is quoted, you can indicate the missing lines by placing the ellipsis dots
below:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
. . . .
To my mind, rewriting is definitely better than "...counsel you".
(Please accept my apology if I miscounted the lines of the play.)
nancy g.
Albert W. Snype wrote:
> Herring-choker for Swede or Norwegian appears in at least one reference,
> but sounds unlikely.
My dad, who grew up in Nova Scotia, said that Nova Scotians were sometimes
referred to (in a mildly derogatory sense) as "blue-nosed herring-chokers."
The term was apparently used to refer to Nova Scotians in particular,
or to any Canadian who was not *French* Canadian. His ethnic background
was neither Swedish nor Norwegian ... a slight bit of Scotch or German,
I believe, but mostly English.
He left Canada for good in the 1930's, so this reference is quite dated.
Nancy G.
who wouldn't know a herring if one bit me ...
and why would I want to choke one, anyway?
Albert W. Snype
In article <RjGAMBA8...@redwoods.demon.co.uk>,
jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk says...
>
>
>This identification of a nation with what it supposedly eats is not
>confined to the French: "Kraut" for German derives of course from
>Sauerkraut, and in the Royal Navy "haggis yaffler", or simply "Haggis"
>for a Scot and "oggy yaffler" for a Cornishman were more colourful
>alternatives to "Jock" and "Jan". (An "oggy", BTW, is a Cornish pasty).
>And "Spud", the usual nickname for anyone called Murphy, derives from
>the Irish attachment to the potato.
>
>Can anyone think of similar examples?
There are quite a few, always derogatory. For example: beaner, greaser,
spaghetti-bender, noodle, limey, mick maybe from the spud or the other way
around. Herring-choker for Swede or Norwegian appears in at least one reference,
but sounds unlikely.
O&W
BILLM...@delphi.com wrote in article <5t26cn$m...@lotho.delphi.com>...
>
>
> I do not do it "the American way".
>
Sure looks wrong to my eyes.
Bob Cunningham
njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
>On Sat, 16 Aug 1997 12:26:14 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
>wrote:
>
>>njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
>>
>>>On Fri, 15 Aug 1997 06:04:59 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
>>>wrote:
[...]
>I'm sorry, but The Chicago Manual of Style may be your Bible, but it
>isn't mine.
It isn't necessarily mine, either. I do know, though, that it's a
highly respected manual^. But in this case it happened to be the first
style manual I looked in that had an example of the point I wanted to
make.
Would you care to say what style manual or manuals you do prefer, and
single out one that addresses the problem we are discussing; that is,
ending a sentence with a quoted string that specifies the precise
textual contents of a line of text?
[...]
I know of no way to solve the problem -- short of recasting the sentence
-- without using the method proposed by _The Chicago Manual of Style_.
Again, the problem is to refer to a line of text, specifying its precise
contents, with the quoted line being the last thing in the sentence.
Can anyone think of a way to solve this problem without putting the
period after the quotation mark and without recasting the sentence?
The problem of specifying the exact contents can be solved, of course,
by recasting the sentence to bring the quote away from the end of the
sentence:
"Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you" has long been regarded
as the first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando.
or:
The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando has long been
regarded as reading "Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you" by
most scholars.
The statement could conceivably be phrased as a question, so that the
period at the end is replaced by a question mark, and the question mark
can be placed after the quotation mark without bending American
punctuation rules:
Who has not heard that the first line of Le Beau's warning to
Orlando has long been regarded as reading
"Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you"?
Or it could be regarded as an indignant and heated remark in response to
someone who has been questioning the writer's authority:
The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando *has* long been
regarded as reading "Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you"!
Again, the punctuation mark comes after the quote, in strict accordance
with American punctuation rules.
But I resent having to frame a sentence in an awkward way to avoid a
deficiency in punctuation rules. To use a cliché that happens to be
quite apt in this case, it's like the tail wagging the dog.
Also, I think it's safe to say a sentence that has been recast never has
exactly the same meaning as the original, especially if you take
"meaning" to include the relative degree of emphasis given to different
portions of the sentence.
After the initial writing of this posting I came across a posting by
"O&W" that has the following comment:
The reference above could have been written
LeBeau's warning to Orlando has been regarded as reading
"Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you" (252).
This is according to the Harbrace Handbook ( toward which I lean ,
because I worked with John Hodges once).
My copy of the _Harbrace College Handbook_ is quite old (5th Edition
1962). I haven't found the example quoted above, so I don't know what
the "(252)" stands for. It seems possible, though, that it's
information the writer didn't intend to include until it became
necessary to do so in order to circumvent the punctuation problem. If
so, this is yet another case of the tail wagging the dog.
^ _The Oxford Companion to the English Language_ says of _The
Chicago Manual of Style_ that it's the "most influential" of
American style manuals. And further on: "Many publishing
houses and university presses use it as their principal reference".
O&W
Bob Cunningham <ad...@lafn.org> wrote in article
<3408e572....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
> njk...@no-spam.mindspring.com (Mimi Kahn) said:
> After the initial writing of this posting I came across a posting by
> "O&W" that has the following comment:
>
> The reference above could have been written
> LeBeau's warning to Orlando has been regarded as reading
> "Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you" (252).
> This is according to the Harbrace Handbook ( toward which I lean ,
> because I worked with John Hodges once).
>
That is the number of the line--information often supplied by critics or
students. In this case, line numbers were given at the top of the page,
dictionary fashion (bassoon - bath). I did my own counting and may have
erred. However the number is usually supplied every few lines by the
publisher. This is a real aid when comparing different editions.
(Harbrace, 10th edition, by the way)
> My copy of the _Harbrace College Handbook_ is quite old (5th Edition
> 1962). I haven't found the example quoted above, so I don't know what
> the "(252)" stands for. It seems possible, though, that it's
> information the writer didn't intend to include until it became
> necessary to do so in order to circumvent the punctuation problem. If
> so, this is yet another case of the tail wagging the dog.
Really believe the line number would be used im textual comment or
criticism.
Philip Eden
apo...@tomco.net (John Starr) wrote:
>Albert W. Snype <qui...@inreach.com> wrote:
>
>> In article <RjGAMBA8...@redwoods.demon.co.uk>,
>> jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk says...
>> >This identification of a nation with what it supposedly eats is not
>
>> There are quite a few, always derogatory. . . .
> ^^^^^^
>
>Your keyboard is perhaps faster than your thought-processes. Cf. "limey".
>
>--
Whereas the term is not of itself derogatory, I've usually found that
it was offered in a derogatory (or at best jocularly insulting) manner.
My experience, however, is not all that extensive, and I may be being
unfair here.
Certainly one French word for the British - "les rosbifs" is not at
all derogatory, nor is it uttered in an insulting way.
One interesting development to these national nicknames has
developed in France in the last decade or two ... describing other
Europeans by the international country codes affixed to motor cars.
Thus the Dutch - NL - are called Nouvelle Lune (lunatics) and the
British - GB - are 'gueules de bois', literally 'wooden snouts'
which is slang for those who can't hold their drink.
Philip Eden
John Nurick
On Sun, 17 Aug 1997 11:54:14 GMT, ad...@lafn.org (Bob Cunningham)
posted another careful exposition of a case in which the ordinary
American punctuation convention does not make a significant
distinction.
Bob, basically I'm with you on this and I don't understand why Mimi
seems not to have grasped the point. But I have begun to wonder: of
educated American readers, what proportion would see
The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando has long been
regarded as reading "Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you".
and realise what was going on? I suspect that the large majority would
simply think, "That period should be inside that quote mark."
I've also spent half the day devising a filter for an unknown
(non-DOS, non-MAC, non-CP/M) word processor, and have concluded
(a) that anyone who really cares about dots and quote marks should
write Perl, not English, and
(b) that Le Beau's warning to Sergeant Schultz would be a more
interesting topic.
Markus Laker
Someone has been cancelling my messages recently. This is a repost.
Please accept my apologies if you saw the original.
tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux):
> (I suppose I must point out that when I speak English, I pronounce
> "France" with a very American "a", which may or may not be /&/, as best
> I can read the FAQ. Actually the FAQ says /&</, is that deliberate or a
> typo?)
The version of the FAQ from 2 Oct 96 doesn't contain the string '&<'.
Perhaps your copy has become corrupted?
Markus Laker.
--
My real address is 'laker at tcp.co.uk'.
An emailed copy of any reply would be appreciated.
Use a spammer's email address when you post to Usenet!
An experiment to see whether spammers scan message bodies: msln...@contax.co.uk