} It's just that I don't see how my family's } usage patterns could not be "American." } Any non-American ... from books. } } } Michael West } Melbourne, Australia Is that like that irony I've been hearing about? Maybe

} }> Why does having a greater number of ancestral generations whose members }> were physically present in the US make one "more American", as I believe }> you are implying? Oy! } } It's just that I don't see how my

D: "Do you have a magnetic or gyroscopic compass?" S: ... our ship as we get close." S: "Don't be afraid." The implication being that the American wasn't familiar with this usage? Or that he was poking fun at it?

There's a big difference between "I could give a damn" and "I could care less" in this respect. "I couldn't ... negative and the conditional to come up with its negative meaning. No way would it have been

In my opinion Morissette is more up to date than those who accuse her of misuse. Isn't it time we allowed "irony" its head? Yeah, great, very civic-minded, but what pisses me off is that the ignorant take a word away but don't

As for "could care less", from my experience I reject the idea that it expresses some sort of irony. The ... that the speaker is parroting an expression he or she has heard without bothering to think about what it means. I agree, but

Perhaps she's using the term itself ironically. I've never been sure about this one. The song is called "ironic" and contains the line: "And isn't it ironic... " .. but she doesn't actually say that the listed

So I think 'process ' is something different from 'processed ... apply some process of emulsifying, blending, whatever - process cheese. At least skim milk once was, and to some extent still is, milk. It's just incomplete milk.

So I think 'process ' is something different from 'processed ' rather than a terminological corruption. Though if OED is ... natural thing - cheese Ya take the natural cheese and apply some process of emulsifying, blending,

"Skim" is an orthographical variant of "scum". That's interesting. So the standard joke in our house - where we regularly refer to semi-skimmed as "semi-scum" is arguably correct! Dead on, I'd say. I wonder if