New York Times Christian Obituary

[AJP Crown]

This was in today's NY Times. I'm sharing it because I like the examples of the Pitcairn Islanders' so-called "English creole".

[Ran Ari-Gur]

It also has an interesting use of the word "former": his widow is identified as "the former Betty Christian", since "Christian" was her maiden name (even though it's also her married name).

[John Cowan]

AJP Crown scripsit:

> I'm sharing it because I like the examples of the Pitcairn Islanders'
> so-called "English creole".

Thanks. I've snippeted them here for those who have maxed out their
NYT free articles for the month:

> “Wut a way you?” (How are you?), “Fut you no bin larn me?”
> (Why didn’t you tell me?), “You se capsize and o-o!” (You’ll
> fall over and get hurt!)

But why "so-called"? It's a creole, all right, almost a classic Atlantic
creole, except for the minor detail of being in the Pacific, which means
there is a thin layer of borrowings from Tahitian, mostly taboo words
and what we might call "adjectives of unpleasant qualities".

Note that the Norfolk Island variety has gotten a lot more exposure
to Standard English (and in fact is diglossic with it), but is mostly
mutually intelligible with the Pitcairn Island variety.

There are more samples at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitkern_language#Common_phrases>.

=====

Thanks also to Trond for his tutorial on replying on public mailing lists.
Here's a brief explication of what's wrong with top-posting:

A: It puts the answer before the question.
Q: What's wrong with top-posting?

With a public archive, it's never necessary to preserve the full
context of the message you're replying to: the immediate context
almost always suffices.

--
There is / One art John Cowan <co...@ccil.org>
No more / No less http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
To do / All things
With art- / Lessness --Piet Hein

[John Cowan]

Ran Ari-Gur scripsit:

> It also has an interesting use of the word "former": his widow is
> identified as "the former Betty Christian", since "Christian" was her
> maiden name (even though it's also her married name).

Cool!

John Cowan (formerly John Cowan)

--
Babies are born as a result of the John Cowan
mating between men and women, and most http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
men and women enjoy mating. co...@ccil.org
--Isaac Asimov in Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship

[AJP Crown]

What does "Mark As Complete" mean?

I see Trond's added instructions.  Many thanks for that Trond.  I still find the layout chaotic.  I can't figure out the hierarchy.  So much for google being so bloody clear - oh, no, that's Apple, isn't it?  Google's just jolly clever (in some way).

mvh,

AJP Crown Change

[John Cowan]

AJP Crown scripsit:

> What does "Mark As Complete" mean?

It's for people who believe that discussions can come to a definite
end and that people (normal people, anyway) should be banned from
adding more after that. Since we *don't* think that, I've turned
off the feature. I hope.

> I see Trond's added instructions. Many thanks for that Trond. I still
> find the layout chaotic. I can't figure out the hierarchy.

The only hierarchy is that messages with the same subject lines are grouped
together, and when you click on one, you get them all in order, separated
by (rather faint) horizontal lines. *Within* a message, the structure is
whatever the poster decided it should be: Google can't reassemble the
snippets together or anything like that.

Personally, I only look at the web site when I want to get back the
content of someone's old message. Otherwise, I just use my email client.

> mvh,

"med ven(n)lig hilsen", is it?

--
Note that nobody these days would clamor for fundamental laws John Cowan
of *the theory of kangaroos*, showing why pseudo-kangaroos are co...@ccil.org
physically, logically, metaphysically impossible. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Kangaroos are wonderful, but not *that* wonderful. --Dan Dennett on zombies

[AJP Crown]

mvh, 

"med ven(n)lig hilsen", is it? 

Yes.  One N for dansk. 

I'm sorry, John.  I saw this, this morning as email, couldn't see a way to reply & then forgot about it.  It's only when I took a look here in Groups that I remembered.

[David Marjanovic]

> "med ven(n)lig hilsen"

mit... feindlichen... what? :-]

[John Cowan]

David Marjanovic scripsit:

> > "med ven(n)lig hilsen"
>
> mit... feindlichen

Per contra.

> ... what? :-]

Alas, the online "Dansk etymologisk ordbog" is silent. But the range
of meanings involves both greeting and military salute, FWIW.

--
In my last lifetime, John Cowan
I believed in reincarnation; http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
in this lifetime, co...@ccil.org
I don't. --Thiagi

[AJP Crown]

mit... feindlichen... what? :-]
Farewells? With hostile farewells?  That would be "med fiendtlige farveler" på norsk, I think.

Alas, the online "Dansk etymologisk ordbog" is silent.  But the range 
of meanings involves both greeting and military salute, FWIW. 

In Norwegian, "med vennlig hilsen", or very often simply "mvh", is the standard closing for a formal letter or formal email.  To a friend, you'd probably just write "hilsen", no "vennlig" (the friendliness being taken for granted, I suppose), and to someone who is more than a friend you might write "hjertelig hilsen" with the "hjerte" part drawn in the shape of a heart. 

It's just the "hilse" part that would be used to mean a military salute, no "med vennlig", and I assume it must be pretty close in origin to the German word "heil".

On Saturday, August 24, 2013 4:44:29 PM UTC+2, AJP Crown wrote:

[AJP Crown]

John, where to your little aphorisms come from, the ones that appear at the bottom of your posts?  Do you think of one specially every time you write something, occasionally consulting a stack of books on the floor by your desk - or is it as I suspect, something that's automatically picked for you by a computer?

On Saturday, August 24, 2013 4:44:29 PM UTC+2, AJP Crown wrote:

[John Cowan]

AJP Crown scripsit:

> John, where to your little aphorisms come from, the ones that appear
> at the bottom of your posts? Do you think of one specially every
> time you write something, occasionally consulting a stack of books
> on the floor by your desk - or is it as I suspect, something that's
> automatically picked for you by a computer?

They are automatically picked by a program without regard to the content
of the email. The list from which they come, however, is manually
maintained by me; it currently contains 250 signatures and can be read
at <http://ccil.org/~cowan/signatures>.

If the signature grossly clashes with the message, I may change it for
another one. On rare occasions I want a particular signature and then
I replace the automatically supplied one with it, as I have done for
this message.

--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan <co...@ccil.org>
You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn.
You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn.
Clear all so! `Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)