Time to retire?
Harry Mary Andruschak
The rest can safely skip it.
@@@@@@@@@@@@
Had another blow-up with my supervisor from hell. No need to go into
details, but as far as he is concerned, I am not doing my job at the
Post Office. I am an old dog who cannot learn new tricks, I disobeyed
one of his orders, I am incompitent to do some of the tasks I am
assigned.
And who knows...maybe he is correct. Of course, four other technicians
and one mechanic did all they could to leave him, and were successful.
I wasn't. I had to stay. Too bad. NOBODY likes him or wants to work
under him. Way too demanding.
I was given a hearing and repremand at 8:15 PM on Wednesday, 5 May.
About 11 PM I measured my blood pressure at 170/100. The next day I
called EAP for an appointment. I will see the EAP Counselor next
Monday at 12:30 PM. This is the same one who helped me 8 years ago.
After that, I start work at 2 PM.
I have called in sick for 6 - 8 May. I see my Physician at 10 AM on 7
May.
I talked to my AA sponsor, and after awhile he suggested that I
seriously consider retirement. I will be age 65 on 4 October, so why
was I planning on working to age 70? Was the slightly higher
retirement pay worth the stress? I come from a family history of heart
attacks. 170/100 is pushing it.
Of course, retirement will be a drastic chenge in my lifestyle, as
well as a big drop in annual income. Us alcoholics HATE change, but my
AA sponsor says he will help me through. I plan to start the paperwork
when I return to work Monday.
As always, my cats have neither approved nor disapproved of this
decision. They did like the fact that I was home all day to play with
them. Pumpkin still prefers Da Bird, Silver the red laser penlight,
and Fluffy just to lie on top of me in bed.
Edward McArdle
<95be12b7-f105-404a...@z23g2000prd.googlegroups.com>, Harry
Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
I retired at 53, about 18 years ago.
I had the advantage that I play a lot of tennis. I play social tennis with
various other oldies about four days a week at two tennis clubs, and I do
the newsletters for three clubs. The third I am a life member but don't
play there any more. I also play golf one day a week.
The point of this is that you do need something to do when you retire.
Preferably something which gives you a bit of exercise.
--
Edward McArdle
Martha Adams
news:mcardle-0705...@192.168.1.6...
==============================================
Speaking from 13 years retired point of view, I have some ideas.
"Us alcoholics HATE change...." I don't see a connection between the
one and the other. *Anyone* hates the wrong change; the right change is
real good. What makes the difference is to get an advance guess what
you're getting into and then make good choices. A counselor can be real
good for this.
I notice you say "sponsor." I think you want a real counselor, a
*social worker* person age 40-60 with at least 20 years experience. If
your sponsor isn't one then you want to get out and find one. Yes it
costs money but maybe you can find support. Remember the old saying,
"There are some successes that are simply not survivable," which is
basically the trap for those who won't explore their issues with expert
support.
I think the biggest risk in retirement is to fall in with others your
own age and older. Aging not only is something that happens to you,
it's a culture. It's a culture you want to *stay out of* even though
that's the easy way to do it.
170/100 is bad news for *anyone*.
Exercise is even more important than anyone tells you it is. It's
better yet if you can lose weight until you're skinny. As little as
five miles walk daily works for your heart and blood pressure if you can
find several upslopes in it. In my experience, walking without the
upslopes isn't exercise enough.
Titeotwawki -- mha [rasff 2009 May 07]
Dorothy J Heydt
Martha Adams <mh...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>I think the biggest risk in retirement is to fall in with others your
>own age and older. Aging not only is something that happens to you,
>it's a culture. It's a culture you want to *stay out of* even though
>that's the easy way to do it.
Oh hell yes. I retired in 1998 (had to, I could no longer
sit up in a chair all day) and my social group consists of my
immediate family, the SCA, and people I know online. I
*refuse* to hang out with people with whom I have nothing in
common but age.
>
>170/100 is bad news for *anyone*.
Agreed.
>
>Exercise is even more important than anyone tells you it is. It's
>better yet if you can lose weight until you're skinny. As little as
>five miles walk daily works for your heart and blood pressure if you can
>find several upslopes in it. In my experience, walking without the
>upslopes isn't exercise enough.
I used to walk a lot. Till we moved to Vallejo, which is
built on hills and has plenty of upslopes and downslopes too
... and walking home from church one day, I tripped over a
crack in the sidewalk, fell down a downslope, and got nasty
multiple fractures in my wrist. I no longer trust my
balance. Maybe I should get a walker.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Jette
It seems that people who "live to work" and have no hobbies outside
work tend to retire and then drop dead. Those who have 'lives'
outside of work go on forever.
--
Jette Goldie
je...@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfette/
http://www.jette.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
http://wolfette.livejournal.com/
("reply to" is spamblocked - use the email addy in sig)
Jette
>
> Exercise is even more important than anyone tells you it is. It's
> better yet if you can lose weight until you're skinny. As little as
> five miles walk daily works for your heart and blood pressure if you can
> find several upslopes in it. In my experience, walking without the
> upslopes isn't exercise enough.
In my experience walking without upslopes is *impossible* in Scotland ;-)
Keith F. Lynch
> seriously consider retirement. I will be age 65 on 4 October, so
> why was I planning on working to age 70?
If you can afford to retire, why not?
If current trends continue, I will never be able to afford to retire.
I believe the same is true of most Americans my age and younger.
> Of course, retirement will be a drastic chenge in my lifestyle, as
> well as a big drop in annual income.
Will you be able to afford to pay the rent? Do you spend much on
anything else?
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>> I talked to my AA sponsor, and after awhile he suggested that I
>> seriously consider retirement. I will be age 65 on 4 October, so
>> why was I planning on working to age 70?
>
>If you can afford to retire, why not?
Well, that is the question: can he? You'll recall
Harry's retirement funds were all tied up in some kind
of scheme* that failed, forcing him to go into bankruptcy,
which it took him years to get out of. AFAIK he'll have
only Social Security, which is meagre.
>
>If current trends continue, I will never be able to afford to retire.
>I believe the same is true of most Americans my age and younger.
>
>> Of course, retirement will be a drastic chenge in my lifestyle, as
>> well as a big drop in annual income.
>
>Will you be able to afford to pay the rent? Do you spend much on
>anything else?
Food, cat food, medication?
_____
*Possibly I mean "scam"?
Martha Adams
news:KJAtv...@kithrup.com...
================================================
Scheme/scam: hope and need are such powerful motivators. Madoff,
investors whose "sophisticated" mathematically foolproof schemes, and
the like have pushed a lot of people into bad situations in their older
years. For which reason, I think HMA can hope for relief down the line,
but I also think it would be a mistake to count on it.
There were several books along the line of "living poor with style" back
in the later hippie years. Maybe something there could prove helpful.
Possibly some attention to detail could accomplish a more
pennies-pinching lifestyle, and I see nothing disgraceful about doing
that. I think it's just plain sensible. And back there in the past,
might there be some unrealized money of some sort?
I think a skeptical attitude about what you get vs what you give, is
especially good for anyone living near the lower limit. There are any
number of *vultures* out there who seek such victims, and because many
victims are out there, the vultures are practiced and very good at what
they do. My #1 rule about those people would be,
*Don't, Don't* do business with someone who turns up out of nowhere and
finds you. Don't! The people you want to do business with are probably
in your environment now, or near it. Take some time to find them and
size them up.
And my #2 rule would be, watch which direction your money is moving. If
it's moving away from you, *change that.* If it's moving toward you,
*maybe* you are doing something right but take the time to understand it
well.
So that's some ideas from here. Titeotwawki -- mha [rasff 2009 May 07]
Keith F. Lynch
> There were several books along the line of "living poor with style"
> back in the later hippie years.
I can also give a few pointers, from personal experience.
> *Don't, Don't* do business with someone who turns up out of nowhere
> and finds you. Don't!
I agree. Also, if someone is at all deceptive, dishonest, or breaks
rules, avoid them. This should go without saying, but given that
spam, telemarketing calls to numbers on the do-not-call list, and
paper mail that disguises itself as something that it's not to fool
you into opening it get positive responses, apparently many people do
need this advice.
Any firm which spams me, lies to me, telemarkets me, or attempts to
deceive me goes on my permanent avoid list.
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> There were several books along the line of "living poor with style"
>> back in the later hippie years.
>
>I can also give a few pointers, from personal experience.
>
>> *Don't, Don't* do business with someone who turns up out of nowhere
>> and finds you. Don't!
>
>I agree. Also, if someone is at all deceptive, dishonest, or breaks
>rules, avoid them. This should go without saying, but given that
>spam, telemarketing calls to numbers on the do-not-call list, and
>paper mail that disguises itself as something that it's not to fool
>you into opening it get positive responses, apparently many people do
>need this advice.
>
>Any firm which spams me, lies to me, telemarkets me, or attempts to
>deceive me goes on my permanent avoid list.
Ohhhhh yes.
I keep getting spam paper mailings from everybody from the
Unitarian Universalists to somebody offering to sell customized
checks or to buy one's unused vacation timeshare.
None of them are addressed to me. They're addressed to my
mother-in-law, who died in 2005 and had sold her vacation
timeshare AT LEAST fifteen years before.
Fortunately, they have all had 1-800 or similar numbers; so I
call 'em up and say to the person, very sweetly, "Esther
Heydt was my husband's mother. She died four years ago. It
upsets my husband to see mailings arriving for her; wouldn't
you like to save at least a few twigs and take her off your
mailing list?" And the person (so far at least) has always
said, "Oh, I'm so sorry, give me the name again, and the
address, and I'll fix it." Truly it has been said, sometimes
you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
(Unless they are fruit flies. :) )
These guys have never once offered anything any of the rest
of us wanted anyway, so I don't have to make a special mental
note not to deal with them.
Oh yes ... so far I've seen two spams offering cures for
swine flu. And that's AFTER my sysop's extremely efficient
spam-sieve that removes most of it. (I do have a nasty flu
at the moment, but neither my doctor nor I think it's
swinish.)
Kip Williams
> Oh yes ... so far I've seen two spams offering cures for
> swine flu. And that's AFTER my sysop's extremely efficient
> spam-sieve that removes most of it. (I do have a nasty flu
> at the moment, but neither my doctor nor I think it's
> swinish.)
NOBODY expects the Swinish Influenza!
Kip W
Dorothy J Heydt
Well, some seem to be expecting it at the moment. And just
in case, I'm doing things like coughing into kleenices which
I then put in the trash, washing my hands a lot, and not
venturing upstairs at all because we have a fourteen-month
baby up there.
(Well, technically *we* don't, my daughter and son-in-law do,
but you knew what I meant.)
Paul Dormer
wrote:
> coughing into kleenices
I like that plural. Never seen it before. :-)
Dorothy J Heydt
I think I invented it. If you pretend something is Latin, it
is sometimes easier to decline it. Sometimes harder.
Paul Dormer
Heydt) wrote:
>
> In article <memo.2009050...@pauldormer.compulink.co.uk>,
> Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <KJB4F...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy
> >J Heydt)
> >wrote:
> >
> >> coughing into kleenices
> >
> >I like that plural. Never seen it before. :-)
>
> I think I invented it. If you pretend something is Latin, it
> is sometimes easier to decline it. Sometimes harder.
Never studied Latins, so I wouldn't recognise a declension if it bit me.
But I'm sure I've told the story about setting someone right on the Latin
plural of "status" before.
Dorothy J Heydt
Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <KJByK...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>
>> In article <memo.2009050...@pauldormer.compulink.co.uk>,
>> Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>> >In article <KJB4F...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy
>> >J Heydt)
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >> coughing into kleenices
>> >
>> >I like that plural. Never seen it before. :-)
>>
>> I think I invented it. If you pretend something is Latin, it
>> is sometimes easier to decline it. Sometimes harder.
>
>Never studied Latins, so I wouldn't recognise a declension if it bit me.
>
>But I'm sure I've told the story about setting someone right on the Latin
>plural of "status" before.
Yeah, well, status is a fourth-declension noun, where the
nominative singular ends in -u or -us and the plural ends in
-us.
But I haven't heard your story: so what is it?
Paul Dormer
Heydt) wrote:
>
> >But I'm sure I've told the story about setting someone right on the
> >Latin plural of "status" before.
>
> Yeah, well, status is a fourth-declension noun, where the
> nominative singular ends in -u or -us and the plural ends in
> -us.
>
> But I haven't heard your story: so what is it?
I was at a presentation at work. Some salesman was demonstrating a
programme we could use for tracking faults. He was puffing his company's
product whilst doing down all competitors. I gather from my colleagues
that I wasn't the only one who found this tiresome.
And he kept on referring to the "stati" of the calls. Finally, after
he'd used this word several times, I cracked and said, "The Latin plural
of "status" is "status" [pronounced "statoose" for those who don't know].
It's fourth declension."
This completely stunned him. My colleagues said afterwards it was the
best thing about the presentation.
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <memo.2009050...@pauldormer.compulink.co.uk>,
> Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <KJB4F...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
> >wrote:
> >
> >> coughing into kleenices
> >
> >I like that plural. Never seen it before. :-)
>
> I think I invented it.
But not uniquely.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of
_Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
Cambridge University Press.
Dorothy J Heydt
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <KJByK...@kithrup.com>,
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> In article <memo.2009050...@pauldormer.compulink.co.uk>,
>> Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>> >In article <KJB4F...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy
>J Heydt)
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >> coughing into kleenices
>> >
>> >I like that plural. Never seen it before. :-)
>>
>> I think I invented it.
>
>But not uniquely.
Quite possible. Have you used it too?
Dorothy J Heydt
Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
EUGE!!!!
(For non-Latinists: "Very well done.")
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <ddfr-95884E.0...@newsfarm.ams.highwinds-media.com>,
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> >In article <KJByK...@kithrup.com>,
> > djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> >
> >> In article <memo.2009050...@pauldormer.compulink.co.uk>,
> >> Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> >> >In article <KJB4F...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy
> >J Heydt)
> >> >wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> coughing into kleenices
> >> >
> >> >I like that plural. Never seen it before. :-)
> >>
> >> I think I invented it.
> >
> >But not uniquely.
>
> Quite possible. Have you used it too?
Yes. For many years.
And I doubt we're the only ones.
For a more common example of the basic pattern, consider "VAXen."
David Harmon
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote,
>Any firm which spams me, lies to me, telemarkets me, or attempts to
>deceive me goes on my permanent avoid list.
I would like to add anybody who uses the word "free" in describing
something that I have to spend money in order to get. Would like to,
but unfortunately if I did so there would only be about a dozen people
left on the planet to do business with
Martha Adams
news:0sqdnZFWUJbW8JnX...@earthlink.com...
============================================
And we're far off topic, but it's a good thread.
A few years back I was in the local Federal Building for some income tax
forms. For some reason I was sitting next to a quite an old man who
said he was over here from East Germany. He found that paperwork quite
amusing in a "free" country.
Titeotwawki -- mha [rasff 2009 May 08]
David Goldfarb
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <memo.2009050...@pauldormer.compulink.co.uk>,
>Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>And he kept on referring to the "stati" of the calls. Finally, after
>>he'd used this word several times, I cracked and said, "The Latin plural
>>of "status" is "status" [pronounced "statoose" for those who don't know].
>>It's fourth declension."
I thought you said you wouldn't recognize a declension if it bit you.
>>This completely stunned him. My colleagues said afterwards it was the
>>best thing about the presentation.
>
>EUGE!!!!
>
>(For non-Latinists: "Very well done.")
Is that Latin? (The Romans might have borrowed it from the Greeks,
to be sure.)
--
David Goldfarb |"'Shut up, shut up, shut up,' says the stranger
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | from the stars!"
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- _Norstrilia_
Dorothy J Heydt
David Goldfarb <gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>In article <KJC4x...@kithrup.com>,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>In article <memo.2009050...@pauldormer.compulink.co.uk>,
>>Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>>And he kept on referring to the "stati" of the calls. Finally, after
>>>he'd used this word several times, I cracked and said, "The Latin plural
>>>of "status" is "status" [pronounced "statoose" for those who don't know].
>>>It's fourth declension."
>
>I thought you said you wouldn't recognize a declension if it bit you.
>
>>>This completely stunned him. My colleagues said afterwards it was the
>>>best thing about the presentation.
>>
>>EUGE!!!!
>>
>>(For non-Latinists: "Very well done.")
>
>Is that Latin? (The Romans might have borrowed it from the Greeks,
>to be sure.)
It is, indeed, borrowed entire from Greek. But it is Latin,
just as "telephone" is English. You'll find it e.g. in St.
Jerome's translation of the Bible: _Euge serve bone et
fidelis_, "Well, done, thou good and faithful servant."
Kip Williams
news:0sqdnZFWUJbW8JnX...@earthlink.com...
> 5On 7 May 2009 22:47:35 -0400 in rec.arts.sf.fandom, "Keith F. Lynch"
> <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote,
>> Any firm which spams me, lies to me, telemarkets me, or attempts to
>> deceive me goes on my permanent avoid list.
>
> I would like to add anybody who uses the word "free" in describing
> something that I have to spend money in order to get. Would like to,
> but unfortunately if I did so there would only be about a dozen people
> left on the planet to do business with
"And it's free; only a dollar!"
-- Proctor & Bergman, "TV or not TV"
Kip W
Daniel R. Reitman
Dormer) wrote:
>. . . .
>And he kept on referring to the "stati" of the calls. Finally, after
>he'd used this word several times, I cracked and said, "The Latin plural
>of "status" is "status" [pronounced "statoose" for those who don't know].
>It's fourth declension."
>. . . .
Reminds me of the professor who always objected to "syllabi."
Dan, ad nauseam
Daniel R. Reitman
wrote:
>. . . .
>A few years back I was in the local Federal Building for some income tax
>forms. For some reason I was sitting next to a quite an old man who
>said he was over here from East Germany. He found that paperwork quite
>amusing in a "free" country.
I believe I have invented the following line:
American governance is republican in form, democratic in spirit, and
bureaucratic in practice.
Dan, ad nauseam
David Friedman
My newly invented line is:
The trouble with the human body is that it only comes with a lifetime
warranty.
Paul Dormer
Goldfarb) wrote:
>
> In article <KJC4x...@kithrup.com>,
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >In article <memo.2009050...@pauldormer.compulink.co.uk>,
> >Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> >>And he kept on referring to the "stati" of the calls. Finally, after
> >>he'd used this word several times, I cracked and said, "The Latin
> >>plural of "status" is "status" [pronounced "statoose" for those who
> >>don't know]. It's fourth declension."
>
> I thought you said you wouldn't recognize a declension if it bit
> you.
I wouldn't, but some years before I had been curious about what the
correct plural of status was and looked it up in a dictionary, and one
dictionary did give the plural as "status" pronounce statoose. I
happened to mention this to some friends who had done Latin at school and
they said, "Of course, fourth declension." I'd remembered that, without
actually knowing what it meant - I was bluffing.
I've told this anecdote about the presentation before in this group and
somebody did reply explaining what a declension is, but all I know is
that "status" is fourth declension without knowing any of the other three,
or, indeed, if there are more than four.
Dorothy J Heydt
Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>
>I've told this anecdote about the presentation before in this group and
>somebody did reply explaining what a declension is, but all I know is
>that "status" is fourth declension without knowing any of the other three,
>or, indeed, if there are more than four.
There are, in fact, five. Permit me to summarize them for
you, and you can save to disk or forget as you choose.
The first declension consists of words whose nominative ends
in _-a_, such as _insula_ "island," _puella_ "girl," _stella_
"star." Most but by no means all are in the feminine gender.
The second declension consists of words in the masculine
gender ending in _-us_ and words in the neuter gender ending in
_-um_. This is what confuses people; they see a word ending in
_-us_ and assume that it must be second declension and its
nominative singular must end in _-i_. And usually that's true;
but not always.
The third declension consists of a whole passel of nouns in
all three genders with any number of different endings, many
of which end in _-is_. Frequently you can't tell from the
nominative form what the rest of the cases are going to look
like, because the nominative has undergone sound changes, so
dictionary entries give the nominative and genitive singular
to let you know what the stem looks like. E.g., _rex_ "king",
genitive _regis_. Because the stem _reg-_ combined with a
frequent third=declension nominative ending _-s_ to form
_*regs_ which assimilated to _recs_ which was spelled _rex_.
There are oodles of third-declension nouns and you just have
to memorize their nominative forms, their stems, and their
genders.
The fourth declension is a small collection of nouns whose
nominative singular ends in _-u_ or _-us_ and whose nominative
plural ends in _-us_, to the discomforture of people who (_ut
supra_) thought if it ended in _us_ it must be second
declension masculine.
The fifth declension is another small group, mostly feminine,
whose nominative (singular and plural) end in _-es_ and whose
genitive singular ends in _-ei._
Students tend to approach them with dread, mostly from a
feeling of "Oh Gawd, not ANOTHER declension," but they're few
and simple. I can't remember now where I read about some Latin
teacher who told his class, "_Dies_ and _cornu_ [that is, the
model fifth- and fourth- declension nouns] being simplicity
itself, you can learn them both by tomorrow."
Now you can forget all this if you want to.
Martha Adams
news:egl9051r8h4r936g1...@4ax.com...
======================================================
Well, yes, and no. The texts and dictionaries publish the best
estimates of some very able people about what conventional usage is. A
key parameter in that is conventional usage -- *where*?
I'm reminded of a town in upstate New York named Faust. The
conventional pronunciation regionally is "Fawst."
Titeotwawki -- mha [rasff 2009 May 09]
Keith F. Lynch
> A few years back I was in the local Federal Building for some income
> tax forms. For some reason I was sitting next to a quite an old
> man who said he was over here from East Germany. He found that
> paperwork quite amusing in a "free" country.
The US is free in the sense that we can criticize the government,
unlike in the former East Germany. The US isn't particularly free
in other ways.
Certainly, in a free country everyone should be allowed to tell
the government that how much they earned last year is none of the
government's concern, at least if they aren't asking for welfare.
Keith F. Lynch
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> deceive me goes on my permanent avoid list.
> I would like to add anybody who uses the word "free" in describing
> something that I have to spend money in order to get.
I agree. Or if they demand a credit card number. If it's free, why
do they need that?
> Would like to, but unfortunately if I did so there would only be
> about a dozen people left on the planet to do business with
Not in my experience.
Then there are those firms in the "gotcha" business, such as the cell
phone provider that charged someone who downloaded a movie $67,000.
Or the long distance provider that advertised a 5-cent-per-minute
rate, then billed me $15 for a single three-minute phone call. (Last
I checked, a dollar was rather different from a penny.)
I now exclusively use pre-paid phone cards. And if I ever get a cell
phone, it too will be pre-paid.
Keith F. Lynch
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>>>> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>>>>> coughing into kleenices
>>>>> I like that plural. Never seen it before. :-)
>>>> I think I invented it.
>>> But not uniquely.
>> Quite possible. Have you used it too?
> Yes. For many years.
> And I doubt we're the only ones.
Indeed. "Kleenices" gets over 800 Google hits.
> For a more common example of the basic pattern, consider "VAXen."
Right. I own a brace of Vaxen myself.
David Friedman
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> Certainly, in a free country everyone should be allowed to tell
> the government that how much they earned last year is none of the
> government's concern, at least if they aren't asking for welfare.
Adam Smith, discussing possible forms of taxation, dismisses both an
income tax and a wealth tax, or at least near equivalents, on the
grounds that they would require a repeated inquiry into everyone private
affairs which no free people would put up with.
That was in 1776.
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>>>> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>>>> Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>>>>>> coughing into kleenices
>
>>>>>> I like that plural. Never seen it before. :-)
>
>>>>> I think I invented it.
>
>>>> But not uniquely.
>
>>> Quite possible. Have you used it too?
>
>> Yes. For many years.
>> And I doubt we're the only ones.
>
>Indeed. "Kleenices" gets over 800 Google hits.
>
>> For a more common example of the basic pattern, consider "VAXen."
>
>Right. I own a brace of Vaxen myself.
Mirabile dictu. Do they run UNIX? Bell Labs or BSD?
I don't know what kind of hardware kithrup has, but it runs
BSD and occasionally we get the fortune cookie that says,
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And plunged it deep into the VAX.
Don't you envy people who
Do all the things YOU want to do?
Keith F. Lynch
>> Right. I own a brace of Vaxen myself.
> Mirabile dictu. Do they run UNIX? Bell Labs or BSD?
OpenVMS, as does my DEC Alpha.
My employer was going out of business, so my last few paychecks were
partly in the form of furniture and computer hardware.
I have a tower PC that runs NetBSD. It also serves to hold up a
CD case, which in turn holds up a bookshelf. I also have an Apple
laptop, given to me by David Friedman, that runs Mac OS X, which is
really BSD.
Photos of my apartment showing all of this (except the laptop) are at
http://KeithLynch.net/pics/
Those photos are four and a quarter years out of date. I should
really update them, though there have been few changes other than
some additional bookcases.
William December Starr
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
> Students tend to approach them with dread, mostly from a
> feeling of "Oh Gawd, not ANOTHER declension," but they're few
> and simple. I can't remember now where I read about some Latin
> teacher who told his class, "_Dies_ and _cornu_ [that is, the
> model fifth- and fourth- declension nouns] being simplicity
> itself, you can learn them both by tomorrow."
>
> Now you can forget all this if you want to.
Latin is a dead language,
It's very plain to see.
It killed off all the Romans
And now it's killing me.
-- wds
Graham Woodland
And so do I
Object to 'syllabi'.
It's 'syllabuses'.
Hush your cusses!
English stole it:
We control it.
I confess, sir,
One more 's', sir,
Might improve it --
For it needlessly confuses
That it looks like 'syllabuses'.
--
Cheers,
Gray
---
To unmung address, lop off the 'be invalid' command.
Now blogging at http://goat-in-the-machine.blogspot.com/
David Goldfarb
>nominative singular ends in _-u_ or _-us_ and whose nominative
>plural ends in _-us_, to the discomforture of people who (_ut
>supra_) thought if it ended in _us_ it must be second
>declension masculine.
For that matter, there are a number of neuter nouns in the third
declension that end in "-us". Corpus, tempus, opus.
Greek only has three declensions (pretty well analogous to the
first three in Latin) but they make up for it by having much more
complicated verbs.
--
David Goldfarb |"THEY ZONKED ME WITH ELECTRONIC SHOCK WAVES,
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | I TELL YOU!!!"
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- _Prez_ #2
William December Starr
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
> Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>> coughing into kleenices
>>
>> I like that plural. Never seen it before. :-)
>
> I think I invented it. If you pretend something is Latin, it
> is sometimes easier to decline it. Sometimes harder.
Does kleenex --> kleenices work via the same rule as, e.g., aviatrix
--> aviatrices, even though a different vowel precedes the 'x' in
the two singular words?
-- wds
Kip Williams
I expect it's more like "vertex/vertices," though "appendix/appendices"
occurs to me as well.
Kip W
Paul Dormer
December Starr) wrote:
How about index/indices and appendix/appendices.
I remember someone pointing out that index and appendix can both apply to
parts of a book, and also that index has a mathematical meaning - for
instance in showing the power of a number - and an appendix is part of
the body. For part of a book, the plurals are indexes and appendices,
but for the other meanings, the plurals are indices and appendixes.
Dorothy J Heydt
I don't think preceding vowel matters. _Codex_ > _codices_
for example, though note there's a vowel *change.*
David Goldfarb
>--> aviatrices, even though a different vowel precedes the 'x' in
>the two singular words?
Yes, it all ultimately derives from Greek/Latin third declension.
--
David Goldfarb |"Regrets by definition come too late.
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- John M. Ford
Keith F. Lynch
> I remember someone pointing out that index and appendix can both
> apply to parts of a book, and also that index has a mathematical
> meaning - for instance in showing the power of a number - and an
> appendix is part of the body. For part of a book, the plurals are
> indexes and appendices, but for the other meanings, the plurals are
> indices and appendixes.
No, either plural works for either meaning.
Harry Mary Andruschak
> In article <KJDur8.1...@kithrup.com>,
I must sadly admit that this is one of the many reasons my study of
church latin has stalled.
Dorothy J Heydt
Well, neither you nor I are spring chickens any more. I did
study Latin more intensively after I converted than before --
but that's still forty-five years ago. I remember one class
I was in -- we were reading from Wheelock, way in the back of
the book among the Loci Immutati, and I was asked to
translate a medieval tale about a little boy who was tempted
by the Devil to do his Latin homework for him. The latimer
at once realized the kid hadn't done it himself, because he
hadn't made any mistakes. I translated it through more or
less without a pause, and the professor said, "You were
supposed not to have seen this before." I hadn't. It's just
that the vocabulary, and I suspect the syntax, of Church
Latin were a lot more familiar to me than the Ciceronian.
Paul Dormer
Lynch) wrote:
>
> Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> > I remember someone pointing out that index and appendix can both
> > apply to parts of a book, and also that index has a mathematical
> > meaning - for instance in showing the power of a number - and an
> > appendix is part of the body. For part of a book, the plurals are
> > indexes and appendices, but for the other meanings, the plurals
> > are
> > indices and appendixes.
>
> No, either plural works for either meaning.
Well, Chambers agrees with you on appendix, but not on index. A short
Oxford Dictionary disagrees with you on appendix, but I haven't checked
the big OED.
Of course, this might be specifically UK usage.
William December Starr
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
> I did study Latin more intensively after I converted than before
> -- but that's still forty-five years ago. I remember one class I
> was in -- we were reading from Wheelock, way in the back of the
> book among the Loci Immutati, and I was asked to translate a
> medieval tale about a little boy who was tempted by the Devil to
> do his Latin homework for him.
The Devil had Latin homework?
:-)
-- wds
Dorothy J Heydt
If your tongue was any further into your cheek it'd be
wriggling out your ear.
Tim McDaniel
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <kil905hfs5v5fb8ik...@4ax.com>,
> Daniel R. Reitman <drei...@spiritone.com> wrote:
>> American governance is republican in form, democratic in spirit,
>> and bureaucratic in practice.
>
>My newly invented line is:
>
>The trouble with the human body is that it only comes with a lifetime
>warranty.
My apothegms are
- The worst book of the trilogy is the fourth.
- If you're not sure whether you can get away with it, you can't.
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Harry Mary Andruschak
> My apothegms are
> - The worst book of the trilogy is the fourth.
> - If you're not sure whether you can get away with it, you can't.
If it doesn't fit, force it. If it breaks, it needed to be replaced
anyway