further/farther distribution
Don Johnson
I expect, per my dialect, to hear further...I've heard it from varying
sources, including immigrants. Does anyone know what the distribution is of
this word in anglophonia ? I'm in Dutch-influenced Michigan, by the way.
thanks!
--
- don
ref
No, I don't know if there's significant regional difference in the
distribution. I think most everyone uses both "further" and "farther";
there's just disagreement over just when one or the other should be used.
I can't even really formulate a rule about this that applies to my own
speech. To some degree I'm more likely to use "further" than "farther"
when the basis of the far-ness is relatively abstract and non-spatial.
Don Johnson
sounds utterly foreign, almost like the tinge of one's accent heard for the
first time. Kinda just jumps out I guess. Then again, I hear it around here
on occasion...maybe it's a reflection of social class?
-=don
"ref" <rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.3.95.101071...@mail.wesleyan.edu...
Richard Fontana
> I wouldn't say that I ever use "farther". In fact, when I hear it, the word
> sounds utterly foreign, almost like the tinge of one's accent heard for the
> first time. Kinda just jumps out I guess. Then again, I hear it around here
> on occasion...maybe it's a reflection of social class?
Maybe. What's your social class?
Alan Jones
NSOED: "Until recently, farther was preferred of physical distance,
further in figurative contexts, but further is now usual in all
contexts." There's no mention of a BrE/AmE difference or of dialectal
use. However, I'm sure that in my Shropshire UK boyhood we did use
"further" for physical distance - "How far? Not much further now". I
can't remember "farther" at all - it still feels slightly alien,
though I use it.
Alan Jones
Stan Busby
At least in leftpondia, "farther" means linear
distance, while "further" relates to time.
Don Johnson
academic. I guess we'd have to look at a survey of sorts on the usage to
establish the distribution...I can't really say for the other classes.
-=don
"Richard Fontana" <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.010715...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu...
Don Johnson
correctly the dutch for this is "ver" (far) and "verder" (for both
farther/further), and if I peek into the "Barnhart Concise Dictionary of
Etymology"(C 1995 H. W. Wilson Company) for AmE, we have some clues:
far: Appeared around 1200 as "ferr", derived from OE "feorr", with similar
cognates in O. Frisian, O. Saxon, O.H. German(ferro->fern), M.
Dutch(verre->ver). It appears also that O. Icelandic and Gothic had "far"ish
types, supposedly using the <a>, with "fjarri" and "faírra", and then
Proto-Germanic "*ferro-"
It says that "before 1325", "ferr" changed to "farr".
OK here's where I kick myself and the book answers my original question:
"farther adv., adj. Probably before 1300 "ferther"; variant of "Further" and
replacing "ferrer", "ferror", old English "fierr", "fyrr". The variant
"ferther" probably developed by influence of the common vowel sound in M.
English "ferre", "ferrer" (comparative of "ferr" Far) .... "
Now, if we could only find out a good reason why the two forms kept and how
the distinction was formed...maybe it's that the older form was around long
enough to build a few other auxiliary senses like to promote or advance.
Cheers,
don
"Alan Jones" <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uMa47.75383$aE6.6...@news1.cableinet.net...
keep cool
"Stan Busby" <sbu...@jps.net> wrote in message
news:3B5148C8...@jps.net...
If further relates to time how does the expression " further more" tie in.
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Skitt
"keep cool" <keep...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:gjj47.78772$aE6.6...@news1.cableinet.net...
>
> "Stan Busby" <sbu...@jps.net> wrote in message
> news:3B5148C8...@jps.net...
> Don Johnson wrote:
> >
> > I've started to become rather conscious lately of people using farther
> when
> > I expect, per my dialect, to hear further...I've heard it from varying
> > sources, including immigrants. Does anyone know what the distribution is
> of
> > this word in anglophonia ? I'm in Dutch-influenced Michigan, by the way.
>
> At least in leftpondia, "farther" means linear
> distance, while "further" relates to time.
>
> If further relates to time how does the expression " further more" tie in.
"Furthermore" (one word) means "in addition", or "besides".
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel of "Fawlty Towers" (he's from Barcelona).
Tony Cooper
> I guess I'd be middle-class, white, non-suburban, non-conservative,
> academic.
That's an interesting description. I have no quibble with any of the
terms, but wonder why you choose to be "non-suburban" rather than
"urban" and "non-conservative" rather than "liberal". I do see
differences between "non-conservative" and "liberal", but I wonder if
that was a point made or simply a choice of words.
--
Tony Cooper aka: Tony_Co...@Yahoo.com
Provider of Jots & Tittles
ref
> Don Johnson wrote:
> > I guess I'd be middle-class, white, non-suburban, non-conservative,
> > academic.
>
> That's an interesting description. I have no quibble with any of the
> terms, but wonder why you choose to be "non-suburban" rather than
> "urban" and "non-conservative" rather than "liberal".
The "non-suburban" is odd because we still don't know whether he's urban
or rural.
Frances Kemmish
>
> Don Johnson wrote:
> > I guess I'd be middle-class, white, non-suburban, non-conservative,
> > academic.
>
> That's an interesting description. I have no quibble with any of the
> terms, but wonder why you choose to be "non-suburban" rather than
> "urban" and "non-conservative" rather than "liberal". I do see
> differences between "non-conservative" and "liberal", but I wonder if
> that was a point made or simply a choice of words.
>
You don't see any possibility that non-suburban could mean something
other than urban?
Fran
Tony Cooper
> You don't see any possibility that non-suburban could mean something
> other than urban?
On reflection, yes. I live in a definitely suburban area. My son has
a house very near downtown Orlando, but I don't consider his area to
be urban. Orlando isn't city enough to have an urban area. My
daughter lives in a beach town near Jacksonville that would be neither
suburban, urban, nor rural.
My comment had more to do with the "non" aspect of the designation.
Why pick one designation to be "non"?
"Non conservative" begs the same question. There are many stops
between conservative and liberal, but - again - why pick one to
exclude?
As I said, I don't quibble with the terms; I'm just curious about
picking one description not to apply.
Don Johnson
I suppose that the term, given the possibilities, would lack the precision
for this discussion, as in fact it was almost a political statement, I must
admit. Really though, I live in the city, close to everything, and I
participate in downtown/cultural functions. I also go to school in a very
rural area(a cornfield college). I do not play golf nor do I want an SUV and
my perspective would favor an apartment to a house...i hope that's enough!
Don Johnson
of non- there and there indicates a certain opposition to such a lifestyle,
almost implying that either choice, rural/urban or moderate/liberal, would
be shiny in my eyes.
now, to clarify, i'm an "urbanist", and i'm "liberal", meaning not democrat
or republican.
"Tony Cooper" <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9it4ba$npd$1...@slb5.atl.mindspring.net...
Richard Fontana
> Though I shouldn't structurally analyse my own words, I'd say that (my) use
> of non- there and there indicates a certain opposition to such a lifestyle,
> almost implying that either choice, rural/urban or moderate/liberal, would
> be shiny in my eyes.
>
> now, to clarify, i'm an "urbanist", and i'm "liberal", meaning not democrat
> or republican.
I can see what you mean by saying "non-conservative", but it's strange to
regard urban and rural life as being united by their
counter-suburbanness. Though, now that I think of it, I suppose that I
too would prefer both urban and rural (with limitations) settings to
suburban ones.
By the way, could you try not to top-post? Place responses after (or
integrated with) quoted material.
Richard Fontana
Gotcha. Thank you for not top-posting.
Richard Fontana
> Frances wrote:
>
> > You don't see any possibility that non-suburban could mean something
> > other than urban?
>
> On reflection, yes. I live in a definitely suburban area. My son has
> a house very near downtown Orlando, but I don't consider his area to
> be urban. Orlando isn't city enough to have an urban area. My
> daughter lives in a beach town near Jacksonville that would be neither
> suburban, urban, nor rural.
>
> My comment had more to do with the "non" aspect of the designation.
> Why pick one designation to be "non"?
>
> "Non conservative" begs the same question. There are many stops
> between conservative and liberal, but - again - why pick one to
> exclude?
I think (without getting into a big discussion of the bogosities involved
in contemporary American political culture) it makes more sense there; as
many Americans see it, there are just two sorts of political viewpoint
tendencies, conservative and liberal, and "moderate" or "centrist" is just
the ground between them. So "non-conservative" would, to many people,
probably mean "liberal, or centrist but not so far to the right of liberal
that the person could be considered by me to be conservative". Often this
turns on completely superficial things like what party the person belongs
to.
Henry Churchyard
Alan Jones <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
]"ref" <rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote in message
]news:Pine.GSO.3.95.101071...@mail.wesleyan.edu...
]> On Sat, 14 Jul 2001, Don Johnson wrote:
]>> I've started to become rather conscious lately of people using
]>> farther when I expect, per my dialect, to hear further...I've
]>> heard it from varying sources, including immigrants. Does anyone
]>> know what the distribution is of this word in anglophonia ? I'm in
]>> Dutch-influenced Michigan, by the way.
]> To some degree I'm more likely to use "further" than "farther" when
]> the basis of the far-ness is relatively abstract and non-spatial.
] NSOED: "Until recently, farther was preferred of physical distance,
] further in figurative contexts, but further is now usual in all
] contexts." There's no mention of a BrE/AmE difference or of
] dialectal use. However, I'm sure that in my Shropshire UK boyhood
] we did use "further" for physical distance - "How far? Not much
] further now". I can't remember "farther" at all
Just as another data point, Jane Austen uses "farther" roughly about
four times as often as "further" (she uses "farther" in many places
where "further" would be used today).
--
Henry Churchyard chu...@usa.net http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/
Steve Hayes
wrote:
Or that non-conservative could be something other than liberal?
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Tony Cooper
> Or that non-conservative could be something other than liberal?
Covered elsewhere, mate. In case you missed it, the comment related
more to the use of "non" than the designation itself. The expected
presentation would be "I'm not a conservative". That would not
necessarily mean that he is liberal either. It was - to me - a
curious choice of terms and I chose to ask him about it.
Furthermore, my post said that I saw a difference between
non-conservative and liberal. You quoted that part. I did muddle
through the semantics, but was interested in the choice of the
semantics. The poster later explained it.
There are certain terms that "non" would preface and be quite
unremarkable. "Non-white", for example, would stand alone and could
be assumed to mean the person was of multiple heritage. Other uses of
"non" would depend on context and the writer disassociating himself
from something. That was not the case here.
R H Draney
> On Sun, 15 Jul 2001, Don Johnson wrote:
>
> > Though I shouldn't structurally analyse my own words, I'd say that (my)
use
> > of non- there and there indicates a certain opposition to such a
lifestyle,
> > almost implying that either choice, rural/urban or moderate/liberal,
would
> > be shiny in my eyes.
> >
> > now, to clarify, i'm an "urbanist", and i'm "liberal", meaning not
democrat
> > or republican.
>
> I can see what you mean by saying "non-conservative", but it's strange to
> regard urban and rural life as being united by their
> counter-suburbanness. Though, now that I think of it, I suppose that I
> too would prefer both urban and rural (with limitations) settings to
> suburban ones.
Historically, "suburban" is the odd one out...you'd have a rough time of it
explaining it, with all its associated baggage, to someone magically
teleported here from 1901, and he'd still probably think it artifice to
single out the middle of a continuum and then *exclude* that point from a
term...the analogy from another part of the same self-description would be
for someone to call himself a "political non-moderate"....
Re your preference for the ends of the "crowding" spectrum: once heard
someone say of himself "I'd prefer to live in either a large city or a small
town"...odd, in context, as he was at the time living in what a
disinterested observer would consider either a large town or a small
city....r
Richard Fontana
> There are certain terms that "non" would preface and be quite
> unremarkable. "Non-white", for example, would stand alone and could
> be assumed to mean the person was of multiple heritage.
To me "non-white" just means "not white". I don't think it particularly
implies "of mixed racial ancestry", if that's what you're
suggesting. It's more like "person of color".
Tony Cooper
My thinking was influenced by the discussion of the declaritive "I'm
not a conservative." vs the "I'm a non-conservative.". The direct
speaker would say "I'm Afro-American." if that were the case. Even a
direct speaker might say "I'm non-white." if the heritage was mixed.
Tiger Woods, for example. "Non-white" saves the explanation of all of
the contributing heritage.
Even in written accounts, "non-whites" would lump together a
multiplicity of heritage. ie: Chicago is x percent white, and x
percent non-white.
I'm floundering here, by the way, for a synonym for "racial".
Heritage is weak, I know. However, I've just witnessed a long and
involved thread in another group about race being an invalid term and
I didn't want to steer the discussion to that argument.
"Person of color" is, BTW, and interesting phrase by itself. I am
"white". Am I therefore without color? According to the Crayola
company, I used to be "flesh" and I'm now pink or something. This
reminds me of of one of the long-standing unintentional racial slurs
by Johnson & Johnson with their "flesh colored" Band-Aids.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>"Person of color" is, BTW, and interesting phrase by itself. I am
>"white". Am I therefore without color? According to the Crayola
>company, I used to be "flesh" and I'm now pink or something. This
>reminds me of of one of the long-standing unintentional racial slurs
>by Johnson & Johnson with their "flesh colored" Band-Aids.
I know of several people who resent the epither "person of colo(u)r" when it
is applied to them by persons of no colour.
Rowan Dingle
[...]
>"Person of color" is, BTW, and interesting phrase by itself. I am
>"white". Am I therefore without color? According to the Crayola
>company, I used to be "flesh" and I'm now pink or something.
You are a person of pallor.
--
Rowan Dingle
Mike Oliver
>
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2001 10:51:03 -0400, "Tony Cooper" <tony_co...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
>> "Person of color" is, BTW, and interesting phrase by itself. I am
>> "white". Am I therefore without color? According to the Crayola
>> company, I used to be "flesh" and I'm now pink or something. This
>> reminds me of of one of the long-standing unintentional racial slurs
>> by Johnson & Johnson with their "flesh colored" Band-Aids.
>
> I know of several people who resent the epither "person of colo(u)r"
> when it is applied to them by persons of no colour.
And where do you find these colorless people? Perhaps
our governor, Gray Davis?
--
Dilbert: I have a personality!
Dogbert: Let's not have that "is zero a number" debate again, OK?
Evan Kirshenbaum
> According to the Crayola company, I used to be "flesh" and I'm now
> pink or something.
"Peach". They say
Name voluntarily changed to "peach" in 1962, partially as a result
of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.
http://www.crayola.com/canwehelp/pressroom/colorhistory.pdf
"Flesh" was first intruduced in 1949. The other name changes were
"Prussian Blue" (1949) to "midnight blue" (1958) "in response to
teachers' requests" and "Indian Red" (1958) to "chestnut" (1999).
About the last, they say
Indian Red is renamed Chestnut in 1999 in response to educators
who felt some children wrongly perceived the crayon color was
intended to represent the skin color of Native Americans. The
name originated from a reddish-brown pigment found near India
commonly used in fine artist oil paint.
I must say that I was one of those children who wrongly perceived it
in that way.
> This reminds me of of one of the long-standing unintentional racial
> slurs by Johnson & Johnson with their "flesh colored" Band-Aids.
I think it was Godfrey Cambridge who had the line "You just *know*
they weren't talking about me."
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |When all else fails, give the
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |customer what they ask for. This
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |is strong medicine and rarely needs
|to be repeated.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Tony Cooper
> You are a person of pallor.
>
I reserve that distinction for British tourists visiting here in
Florida. By contrast, I am dark-skinned.
R H Draney
news:uy9pni...@hpl.hp.com...
>
> "Flesh" was first intruduced in 1949. The other name changes were
> "Prussian Blue" (1949) to "midnight blue" (1958) "in response to
> teachers' requests" and "Indian Red" (1958) to "chestnut" (1999).
> About the last, they say
>
> Indian Red is renamed Chestnut in 1999 in response to educators
> who felt some children wrongly perceived the crayon color was
> intended to represent the skin color of Native Americans. The
> name originated from a reddish-brown pigment found near India
> commonly used in fine artist oil paint.
>
> I must say that I was one of those children who wrongly perceived it
> in that way.
How do you feel about the popular shade of house paint "Navajo White"?...
Comedian Billy Connolly got into this in one version of his act...when told
that he was "white", he corrected his accuser: "If anything, I'm pale blue.
I'm a pale blue Scottish person. Most of your Scots are pale blue. And
your Irish tend to be pink."
I've got bits of both, but "pink" is a pretty good description....
(Some day, I suppose we're going to have to answer for "Mars Red" and
"Saturn Yellow" as well)....r
Aaron J Dinkin
> Comedian Billy Connolly got into this in one version of his act...when told
> that he was "white", he corrected his accuser: "If anything, I'm pale blue.
> I'm a pale blue Scottish person. Most of your Scots are pale blue.
[...]
It's the Lamarckian effect of historical woad usage.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Tony Cooper
Note: I just noted that I clicked "reply" instead of "reply group"
and sent this by email to Richard by accident. I apologize, Richard.
> I think (without getting into a big discussion of the bogosities
involved
> in contemporary American political culture)
What are "bogosities"? The on-line dictionaries, and my desk
dictionary,
don't show the word.
it makes more sense there; as
> many Americans see it, there are just two sorts of political
viewpoint
> tendencies, conservative and liberal, and "moderate" or "centrist"
is just
> the ground between them.
I don't think I could begin to define either liberal or conservative.
At
one time, it would have been easy. The older I get, though, the more
difficult definition becomes.
It would be especially difficult for me to apply either term to
myself. I
am smack in the conservative camp on some issues, and wallow in the
liberal
camp on others. I'm not even a centerist or a moderate since I don't
think
liberal and conservative attitudes can be added together and averaged
out.
Worse, I find myself changing from liberal to conservative (or
vice-versa)
practically overnight on some issues. On some issues I find myself in
a
"Yes, but...." mode seeing points on both sides of an issue and unable
to
take a clearly defined position.
In conversations with Europeans - especially the Irish and residents
of the
U.K. - I find that my liberalish position on something is to them a
conservative position. If my position is conservative, it is
arch-conservative to them.
Perhaps it is because of the way that I think, but I find myself
mentally
sneering at people that claim to be either liberal or conservative.
If a
person declares themselves to be firmly in either camp, then that
person has
not (in my opinion) thoroughly thought out the issues. If that person
would
completely examine the issues, he should be as confused as I am.
> Often this turns on completely superficial things like >what party
the
person belongs to.
>
You will think me nit-picking here, but Americans do not - in
general -
belong to a political party. We register to vote in a party (or, as
an
Independent) but we do not join a party. In some European countries,
a
person actually joins a party and pays dues.
I am registered as a Republican. I feel it is better to register in
one of
the parties than to be an Independent because it is the only way to
vote in
a primary. In the primary, I vote for in some cases and against (by
casting
a vote for an opponent) in others. I have always voted for candidates
in
both parties in the general elections. I can't remember voting a
straight
party ticket.
My only consistancy is to each year seek out the recommendations of
the
Christian Conservative groups and religiously vote against their
recommendations. I have a deep distrust of the religious right and
they
have never done anything to shake that abiding feeling. Of course, I
live
in a geographic area that is rampant with candidates from the
religious
right.
I should point out that my objection is not to religion (I'm
Catholic), but
to the objectives of these groups to impose their standards on others
and to
declare all that differ with them to be fundamentally wrong and guilty
of
unacceptable thinking. And, I do include certain Catholics as being
part of
"those groups".
Frances Kemmish
Primary elections are not a feature of UK elections, so that doesn't
apply. I assume there are people who are members of the various
political parties in the USA, who pay dues and so forth. They are
probably about the same proportion of the population at large as are
members of political parties in England. My uncle was a member of the
Pinxton branch of the Labour Party, which was known as the "Big Six" -
that was the number of members it had.
Fran
Skitt
> Richard Fonatana wrote:
>
> > I think (without getting into a big discussion of the bogosities
> involved
> > in contemporary American political culture)
>
> What are "bogosities"? The on-line dictionaries, and my desk
> dictionary,
> don't show the word.
Heh, heh.
bogosity /boh-go's*-tee/ n.
1. [orig. CMU, now very common] The degree to which something is bogus.
Bogosity is measured with a bogometer; in a seminar, when a speaker says
something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say "My bogometer just
triggered". More extremely, "You just pinned my bogometer" means you just
said or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale,
pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading (one might also
say "You just redlined my bogometer"). The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is
the microLenat. 2. The potential field generated by a bogon flux; see
quantum bogodynamics. See also bogon flux, bogon filter, bogus.
That is from the Hacker Jargon site at:
http://www.antionline.com/features/jargon/bogosity.html
R J Valentine
} Tony Cooper wrote:
...
Two separate concepts. What's said about paying dues _can_ be done in the
U. S. of A., but it's different from registering with a party (which may
be generally irrelevant in states where you can vote in any primary
regardless of registration).
In the typical state, the elections are decided in the primary. If you
register for a party, you can vote in the primary; if you don't, you
can't. Your vote counts for more in a minority-party primary, but your
candidate is likely to lose.
ObTrivia: In Maryland (at least my corner of it) you can cast a write-in
vote in the general election, but not in the primary. Write-in votes for
President are complicated, because we don't vote for President.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Frances Kemmish
I know; that was what we were talking about, wasn't it?
Fran
Tony Cooper
> I assume there are people who are members of the various
> political parties in the USA, who pay dues and so forth.
Perhaps, but I've never heard of it. Someone may have a more informed
opinion if the thread continues. Rather than dues, the normal way
to channel money into a political party is by donation. I suppose an
annual donation could be taken as dues, but I wouldn't agree since
there is no set figure.
--
Richard Fontana
Right. Registration only has to do with voting in a particular
state. Whether a political party has some procedure by which someone can
actually become an official "member" is up to the people who run that
party. It may be that the US's two major political parties, the
Demublicans and the Republicrats, do not have such a procedure, though
they certainly welcome donations from just about everybody. I would think
that once someone is actually elected to office on a particular party
ticket and for as long as he or she maintains identification with that
party, that person is treated as "a member of the [X] party as a matter of
course".
One other thing is that it is fairly common for Americans to describe
themselves politically by reference to a particular party identification,
as if they were a member of said party. "I'm a Republicrat", one might
say; "I'm a Demublican", might say another. This generally means: the
person is not too politically apathetic, identifies very strongly (often
for basically sentimental reasons) with one or the other party, the person
tends to vote, and the person tends to vote for candidates of the
identified-with, sentimentally favored party. This is so even for people
who aren't registered with that party. It's sometimes true even when
people are registered with the *opposite* party, though granted you
usually have to have less of a strong identification with the opposing
party to take that step. It is important to realize, however, that in
places where party registration really counts, registering for a party
need not imply that you think of yourself as a member of or a supporter of
that party. I came very close to registering as a Democrat back when I
voted in New York just so that I could vote strategically and have
some influence over civic life. Of course it wouldn't have made much
difference in the case of those elections of judges, since both parties
generally field the same candidate. That be wack.
The polls that show that increasing numbers of Americans regard themselves
as so-called "Independents" refers, I think, mainly to the tendency not to
associate or identify with a particular party, though this probably has
had some effect both on party registrations in those states that have them
and on the move in particular states to have "open primaries".
> In the typical state, the elections are decided in the primary.
Yes, certainly local elections tend to be that way. Probably most
localities in the US are effectively one-party systems.
Richard Fontana
> "Tony Cooper" <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:9j45sp$hr8$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net...
> > Richard Fonatana wrote:
> >
> > > I think (without getting into a big discussion of the bogosities
> > involved
> > > in contemporary American political culture)
> >
> > What are "bogosities"? The on-line dictionaries, and my desk
> > dictionary,
> > don't show the word.
>
> Heh, heh.
>
> bogosity /boh-go's*-tee/ n.
>
> 1. [orig. CMU, now very common] The degree to which something is bogus.
> Bogosity is measured with a bogometer; in a seminar, when a speaker says
> something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say "My bogometer just
> triggered". More extremely, "You just pinned my bogometer" means you just
> said or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale,
> pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading (one might also
> say "You just redlined my bogometer"). The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is
> the microLenat. 2. The potential field generated by a bogon flux; see
> quantum bogodynamics. See also bogon flux, bogon filter, bogus.
>
> That is from the Hacker Jargon site at:
>
> http://www.antionline.com/features/jargon/bogosity.html
I myself suspect that the word "bogosity" has been invented in many places
and at many times, but I'm not going to fight this one. To the extent
that the Jargon File claims that "bogus" in this sort of usage is
particularly due to "Hackers", well, that is total bogosity.
Richard Fontana
> Richard Fonatana [sic] wrote:
>
> > I think (without getting into a big discussion of the bogosities
> involved
> > in contemporary American political culture)
>
> What are "bogosities"? The on-line dictionaries, and my desk
> dictionary,
> don't show the word.
"Bogosity" is the noun formed from the adjective "bogus".
Aaron J Dinkin
Really? In my locality (that is to say, the city I live in), municipal
elections are nonpartisan. No party names are printed on the ballot, and I
think it is not generally known what parties the various candidates
identify with. We do have primaries - or "preliminaries" - but they have
the purpose of narrowing a larger slate of candidates down to just two for
the general election, not of choosing candidates to represent a particular
party.
Charles Riggs
wrote:
What Richard may have meant is that many localities in the US are like
mine in Prince Gorgeous County, Maryland a few years back: the
Democratic primary decided the election. The number of Republicans in
PG county could fit on one bus so they didn't count.
Charles Riggs
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>Richard Fontana <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
What Richard may have meant is that many localities in the US are like
Richard Fontana
Right. There are some communities, of course, where Republicans have
traditionally run the political machinery, but in the East the older urban
communities tend to be controlled by Democrats. In either case it's a
recipe for political corruption, but it's not clear to what extent you can
blame the party that's in charge for this situation today.
There's an interesting twist in New York, which has had a Republican mayor
for the past several years despite the control of the governmental
machinery by the Democrats. Rudolph Giuliani's two terms are up (term
limits having been voted in by referendum, I think), and one of new
mayoral contenders is the wealthy Michael Bloomberg, who runs the
Bloomberg business information empire, and who is financing his own
campaign. Bloomberg is a Democrat (in the sense I described in my other
posting) and a liberal of some sort, but he is seeking the Republican
nomination for mayor (and will run in the Republican primary election,
which will involve few voters, which is a danger for him [New York state
does not have "open primaries"], and those few Republicans who do
vote in Republican primaries in the city tend to be rather
party-oriented) because he knows he has no chance of winning a Democratic
Party primary, since he's not an inside member of the Democratic Party
machinery in the city.
Bloomberg's decision to run for mayor throws a massive monkey wrench in
the aspirations and ambitions of the City's "Public Advocate", career
politician Mark Green, who, it is rumored, had extensive cosmetic dental
surgery in order to make himself look more like a Kennedy.
Aaron Davies
Yes, but how many people invented QBD?
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M. Ranjit Mathews
> I've started to become rather conscious lately of people using farther when
> I expect, per my dialect, to hear further...I've heard it from varying
> sources, including immigrants. Does anyone know what the distribution is of
> this word in anglophonia ? I'm in Dutch-influenced Michigan, by the way.
When used for distance,
Let us go no further (not farther) today.
We can go farther (not further) than that by the end of the day.
In general, my usage is along the following lines:
http://www.lessontutor.com/eesfarther.html