alt.usage.english Google Group

Re: Two pronunciations

dadoc...@spamcop.net (R H Draney) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:45:40 UT

John Dunlop filted:
That's fine where he lives, but this is an *English* group....r

Re: Two pronunciations

docro...@ntlworld.com (Robin Bignall) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:35:27 UT

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:44:57 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
Would that have been LIFO or FIFO?

Re: Helping helpless Petey

jas.h...@goutmail.com (James Hogg) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:31:01 UT

He makes Rey look positively PC!

Re: Parallelism with "rather than" and verbs

em...@owlcroft.com (Eric Walker) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:13:35 UT

Match parts.
Or, if you dislike simple guidelines, think of it this way:
There are two clauses here:
Uninstall the old version.
Install/ing the new version.
That makes it plainer.
Using the -ing form makes the thing a gerund: "Installing the new version
over the old is a bad idea."

Re: about whether

em...@owlcroft.com (Eric Walker) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:03:46 UT

[...]
Bare "whether" expresses the thought compactly and correctly: what you
want to know is if/whether they will be a reference. Adding "about" is
needless and diffuses the sense: hearing "about" whether they will be a
reference may but also may not--it might mean that they told you that
they're still considering it and need to wait for Mr. X to return from

Re: The perpetual calendar

hatu...@cox.net (Hatunen) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:58:05 UT

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:45:45 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
Ah, so you interpret "drag" as "slide". OK.

It got raised twice.

Re: Two pronunciations

dunlop.j...@ymail.com (John Dunlop) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:51:39 UT

R H Draney:
Not when reading a domain name. I used to have a colleague who read it
aloud as "dub dub dub".
Tim Berners-Lee says there are no hyphens in "World Wide Web":
[link]

Re: The perpetual calendar

mark-edwa...@comcast.net (Mark Edwards) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:51:12 UT

Well yes, that will do nicely. Can you do a tree? How are you at being an
alien invader?
Mark Edwards

Re: Language families

hatu...@cox.net (Hatunen) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:40:24 UT

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:26:00 -0400, "James Silverton"
It's obvious why...

Re: Language families

r...@rudhar.eu (Ruud Harmsen) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:33:30 UT

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:47:36 -0700 (PDT): Yusuf B Gursey
<y...@theworld.com>: in sci.lang:
Spanish-Portuguese.
And Curaçau and Bonaire

Re: The perpetual calendar

a24...@ducksburg.com (Adam Funk) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:03:58 UT

There's mainly one person around here who still has the juvenile habit
of making fun of people's names, and it's not you.

Re: The perpetual calendar

a24...@ducksburg.com (Adam Funk) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:07:48 UT

That's only a small part of Kibology, and it's only required in
certain circumstances.
Candidate for psot of the month prize.
You might be a Kibologist. Or you might be able to play one on TV.

Re: OT: Origin of the Alphabet

y...@theworld.com (Yusuf B Gursey) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:04:25 UT

ther e were doubts about the epigraphy and the dialect of Aramaic
before the scientific doubts. at any rate, the patina is a clincher.

Re: The perpetual calendar

a24...@ducksburg.com (Adam Funk) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:57:13 UT

Oh yeah, the first step is admitting...

Re: The perpetual calendar

a24...@ducksburg.com (Adam Funk) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:56:39 UT

Don't try it with a plasma screen --- very dangerous.