Fortuitously!
Tim McDaniel
assistant started a sentence with "Fortuitously". It Made My Day.
When I said how much I liked it, she mentioned "serendipitously".
Later, she used "amongst". My entire week is made.
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
>In a conversation a few minutes ago, the departmental administrative
>assistant started a sentence with "Fortuitously". It Made My Day.
>When I said how much I liked it, she mentioned "serendipitously".
>Later, she used "amongst". My entire week is made.
Once, a girl with whom I was exchanging email trying to arrange a date
used the word 'bootless'. I was thrilled - but ultimately disappointed.
-- Alan
Paul Dormer
>
> In a conversation a few minutes ago, the departmental administrative
> assistant started a sentence with "Fortuitously". It Made My Day.
> When I said how much I liked it, she mentioned "serendipitously".
> Later, she used "amongst". My entire week is made.
"Amongst" isn't a rarity, is it? I use it all the time. Or is this a
UK/US thing?
Dorothy J Heydt
I believe so. USians pretty regularly use "among."
Diverging, not as widely as you might think, I play an MMO
(properly, MMORPG, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing
Game), Lord of the Rings Online. The developer, who did tons of
research into the Tolkienian corpus while setting the game up,
decided to have all the Non-Player Characters speak *British*
rather than American English. Because Tolkien and all his
characters did.
But they're all Americans and occasionally they goof. I recently
sent in a bug report pointing out that a certain character, at
the end of a quest, told her suitor, "I shall marry you" when it
should've been "I will marry you."
Divering a little further but still in-thread (because this
thread is so huge by now), the inhabitants of the Ice-Bay of
Forochel have Finnish place- and personal names ... and it's
*medieval* Finnish, not modern.
--
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.
Paul Dormer
Heydt) wrote:
>
> But they're all Americans and occasionally they goof. I recently
> sent in a bug report pointing out that a certain character, at
> the end of a quest, told her suitor, "I shall marry you" when it
> should've been "I will marry you."
That one has regional variants across the UK anyway, especially between
England and Scotland. For instance, whilst I was staying with some
friends, Morag, a Scottish friend, saw that her cat wanted to go out into
the garden and asked "Will I let the cat out?" Now, in English that
question means Morag had decided whether or not to let the cat out and
was now asking us to guess which she had decided. What she should have
asked in English is, "Shall I let the cat out?" - i.e. what do others
think about the desirability of letting the cat out.
There's a story about a Scotsman visiting London and whilst crossing the
Thames, falls in. To passers-by he shouts, "I will drown and nobody
shall save me!" The passers-by decide that he is determined to drown and
leave him to it.
Nowadays, "shall" and "will" are mostly interchangeable in many contexts.
I can never remember, without looking it up, whether in Rule, Britannia
it's "Briton's never, never shall be slaves" or "will be slaves".
Keith F. Lynch
> ... Morag, a Scottish friend, saw that her cat wanted to go out into
> the garden and asked "Will I let the cat out?" Now, in English that
> question means Morag had decided whether or not to let the cat out
> and was now asking us to guess which she had decided. What she
> should have asked in English is, "Shall I let the cat out?" - i.e.
> what do others think about the desirability of letting the cat out.
In the US, it would be, "Should I let the cat out?"
> Nowadays, "shall" and "will" are mostly interchangeable in many
> contexts. I can never remember, without looking it up, whether in
> Rule, Britannia it's "Briton's never, never shall be slaves" or
> "will be slaves".
In the US, "shall" is almost never used, except when speaking very
formally, such as MacArthur's, "I shall return." (Perhaps he should
have said "I'll be back" in a menacing Austrian accent.)
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Jay E. Morris
I never used it until I started hanging out with bad company.
David V. Loewe, Jr
wrote:
You know Paul Rodgers?
--
"Isn't life strange
A turn of the page
A book without light
Unless with love we write"
John Lodge
Paul Dormer
Lynch) wrote:
>
> > should have asked in English is, "Shall I let the cat out?" - i.e.
> > what do others think about the desirability of letting the cat
> > out.
>
> In the US, it would be, "Should I let the cat out?"
To my ears, "Shall I let the cat out?" and "Should I let the cat out?"
have slightly different meanings to me, but I'm not sure what they are.
Checking some grammar guides seems to suggest (which ties in with how I
hear them in my mind) that "should" is used in a hypothetical sense. So,
"Should I let the cat out?" means I've made up my mind to let the cat out,
but would like some backing on this. I suppose this is tied in with
"Should I have let the cat out?" - I let the cat out, but now I'm not
sure it was a good idea. "Shall I let the cat out?" means I've no strong
views on this, what do other people think.
A few weeks ago, the Errors and Omissions column in the paper examined a
sentence in a report from Los Angeles by a British reporter who'd
obviously gone native. He wrote something of the form, "Unemployment
just broke three million." In English, there are two forms of the past
tense, and in this case an Englishman would normally write "Unemployment
has just broken three million." To further explain this, he considered
the two sentences, "I broke my leg" and "I have broken my leg". The
former means I broke my leg at some time in the distant past, but I'm OK
now, the latter, which apparently is little used in the US, implies that
my leg is still broken.
Joy Beeson
p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk (Paul Dormer) wrote:
> To my ears, "Shall I let the cat out?" and "Should I let the cat out?"
> have slightly different meanings to me, but I'm not sure what they are.
In my dialect, "Shall I let the cat out?" means "Do you want me to
let the cat out?" while "Should I let the cat out?" means "Is it a
good idea to let the cat out?"
That is, the first is an offer, the second is a request for advice.
Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
Philip Chee
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:01 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
> p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk (Paul Dormer) wrote:
>
>> To my ears, "Shall I let the cat out?" and "Should I let the cat out?"
>> have slightly different meanings to me, but I'm not sure what they are.
>
> In my dialect, "Shall I let the cat out?" means "Do you want me to
> let the cat out?" while "Should I let the cat out?" means "Is it a
> good idea to let the cat out?"
>
> That is, the first is an offer, the second is a request for advice.
"Shall we get married?"
"Someday perhaps".
This sound clip is used at the begining of a song by Chara. But where is
it from? Probably some film (movie) or other but which?
Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
Kevrob
wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:48:43 GMT, "Jay E. Morris" <morr...@epsilon3.com>
>
> >> > In a conversation a few minutes ago, the departmental administrative
> >> > assistant started a sentence with "Fortuitously". It Made My Day.
> >> > When I said how much I liked it, she mentioned "serendipitously".
> >> > Later, she used "amongst". My entire week is made.
>
> >> "Amongst" isn't a rarity, is it? I use it all the time. Or is this a
> >> UK/US thing?
>
> >I never used it until I started hanging out with bad company.
>
> You know Paul Rodgers?
> --
>
I think that Jay's alright, now.
Kevin
David Loewe, Jr.
wrote:
>I think that Jay's alright, now.
That was a Free shot.
Still, you're no Captain Kirke. So maybe you should just Kossoff.
;-)
Dave <--- couldn't think of a way to work in Andy Fraser.
--
"When I hold you in my arms, And I feel my finger on your trigger,
I know no one can do me no harm, because happiness is a warm gun,
Yes it is."
John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Jay E. Morris
On 19-Nov-2009, "David V. Loewe, Jr" <dave...@charter.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:48:43 GMT, "Jay E. Morris" <mor...@epsilon3.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On 19-Nov-2009, p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk (Paul Dormer) wrote:
> >>tm...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) wrote:
> >>
> >> > In a conversation a few minutes ago, the departmental administrative
> >> > assistant started a sentence with "Fortuitously". It Made My Day.
> >> > When I said how much I liked it, she mentioned "serendipitously".
> >> > Later, she used "amongst". My entire week is made.
> >>
> >> "Amongst" isn't a rarity, is it? I use it all the time. Or is this a
> >> UK/US thing?
> >
> >I never used it until I started hanging out with bad company.
>
> You know Paul Rodgers?
He lives in my dashboard. I hear him occasionally but he doesn't respond
when I talk to him. Maybe it just too noisy with all those other people in
there.
Keith F. Lynch
> k...@KeithLynch.net (Keith F. Lynch) wrote:
>> In the US, it would be, "Should I let the cat out?"
> To my ears, "Shall I let the cat out?" and "Should I let the cat
> out?" have slightly different meanings to me, but I'm not sure what
> they are. Checking some grammar guides seems to suggest (which
> ties in with how I hear them in my mind) that "should" is used in a
> hypothetical sense. So, "Should I let the cat out?" means I've made
> up my mind to let the cat out, but would like some backing on this.
To me, there's no such connotation. "Shall I let the cat out?" sounds
quaint or artificial to me, like something I might read in an old
book, but not like something anyone would actually say today.
> To further explain this, he considered the two sentences, "I broke
> my leg" and "I have broken my leg". The former means I broke my leg
> at some time in the distant past, but I'm OK now, the latter, which
> apparently is little used in the US, implies that my leg is still
> broken.
To me, the meanings are almost reversed. "I broke my leg" may mean it
happened long ago or very recently, but "I have broken my leg" implies
that it was long ago.
Paul Dormer
Lynch) wrote:
> but "I have broken my leg" implies
> that it was long ago.
That would be "I had broken my leg."
Jette Goldie
To me "I have broken my leg" implies that it's just happened. Like,
now, and you currently need to have it set by the doctor.
--
Jette Goldie
jette....@gmail.com
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)
David Loewe, Jr.
Isn't English fortuitously amongst the most wonderful of languages?
--
"England and America are two countries seperated by the same language."
- George Bernard Shaw
Keith F. Lynch
> k...@KeithLynch.net (Keith F. Lynch) wrote:
>> but "I have broken my leg" implies that it was long ago.
> That would be "I had broken my leg."
That depends on context:
"I would have walked to the con, but I had broken my leg."
"I have broken my leg and my arm, but never my back or my neck."
Keith F. Lynch
> "Amongst" isn't a rarity, is it? I use it all the time. Or is this
> a UK/US thing?
I think I'd be more likely to say "among." But "amongst" isn't
exclusively a Britishism. It wouldn't sound out of place for an
American to use the word.