re: Eats, Shoots & Leaves page 6
I simply wasn't sure how to spell 'mnemonic'. By entering "pneumonic help remember" into Google, I thought I had found ... dictionary and then realized that there are many people out there who are quite convinced that 'mnemonic' is spelled 'pneumonic'.
I think I've worked with a great many of them.
In Esperanto, the "c" with a circumflex in the word in question is represented "ch" when writing in ordinary Latin letters.
I don't actually read Esperanto, but I seem to recall seeing "c[/nq]^"rather than "ch". Googling in soc.culture.esperanto, "chielon" gives 41 threads to three for "c[/nq]^ielon", but the range for "chielon" is1996-2004, while for "c[/nq]^ielon" it's 1993-2001. Looking at "chu"vs. "c[/nq]^u", both go back to 1989, but there are more early hits for"c[/nq]^u" than for "chu". And both of them seem to have been less popularthan "cxu". So what's the deal?
There's a discussion in the Esperanto FAQ at
http://www.esperanto.net/veb/faq-15.html
I think it was an error to adopt the "x"-method, mainly because it makes Esperanto text on the Internet and Usenet look very, very strange to someone unfamiliar to the language. It has its advantages, as explained in that Web page, but it certainly does seem to me to be counter to Zamenhof's *Fundamento,* where the "h"-method is explicitly given as the method used when the special Esperanto letters are not available. The Esperanto Academy has not taken a stand on the matter. The following is from a previous post I made to sci.lang and alt.usage.english :
(begin quote from Usenet post)
It appears there has
been no great effort
among the members of the Esperanto Academy to oppose the "x-convention" or other conventions for substituting for diacritics when writing in ASCII, and that they themselves have used various methods. An Esperantist wrote the following in a Usenet post, archived in Google Groups archive at
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3BE8B4FD.9020604%40mars.superlink.net&o e=UTF-8&output=gplain
or
http://tinyurl.com/je0q
(quote)
Kiel diris Akademiano Moon dum la lasta UK, cxiuj tiaj dumtempaj solvoj estas tiom efemeraj kiom la decido pri la koloro de inko.
(end quote)
(my translation)
As the Academician Moon said during the last World Esperanto Convention, all these temporary solutions are as ephemeral as the decision about what color of ink to write in.
(end translation)
(end quote from Usenet post)
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Students: Are you brave enough to let our tutors analyse your pronunciation?
> He says Esperanto has 'no definite articles' and 10 lines later quotes 'En
la komenco, Dio kreis le cielon kaj la teron'.
Writing "le" for "la" is a simpler sort of error: At some point, someone miscopied the passage.
I double checked. I copied accurately from Bill's Book (Penguin Edition
1991)
John Dean
Oxford
As regards English one should note that Shakespeare used the ... etymology on Shakespeare's part or not I have no idea.
I could not find that at Rhymezone.com nor the Shakespeare First Folios site http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/shakespeare/folio/
Here are two Shakespearean examples:
In characters, as red as Mars his heart / Inflamed with Venus. Troilus and Cressida: V, ii, 164-5
And art not thou Poins his brother?
Henry IV Part II: II, iv, 308
Note that in each case "his" follows a name ending in , which fits this OED2 usage note:
his, poss. pron., 3rd sing. masc. and neut.
4. After a n., used instead of the genitive inflexion.Cf. the similar use of HER, THEIR. Chiefly with proper nouns, but also with others.
Found already in OE., but most prevalent from c1400 to 1750; sometimes identified with the genitive inflexion -es, -is, -ys, esp. in 16-17th c., when it was chiefly (but not exclusively) used with names ending in -s, or when the inflexional genitive would have been awkward. Archaically retained in Book-keeping and for some other technical purposes.
heads of people whose sole or major source of information ... man of his calibre should be meticulous about his research.
I think the problem with Bill B is that he combines the roles of reporter and humorist. A reporting journalist has to sound as though he knows what he is talking about even if he doesn't (for a universally irritating example, see Kipling's prose), and a humorous columnist has to find the funny side. This works well with some subjects (he's revealing about some aspects of life in Australia and England, for example; but nobody takes his words for photography); but it's a less effective approach when a reader has been led to expect more facts than impressions.
A further problem is that because Bill is very good at writing, anything he says about how the language works must be taken seriously, even if it then turns out to be wrong.
Whether on newsprint or between boards, a text has to be moderated by good editing carried out by another hand; and good editing is now regarded as an optional luxury which publishers can't afford to pay for. And I believe the reason it's regarded as optional is that the paying customers seem perfectly happy to do without it: we don't thunder back to the shop to demand our money back if a newspaper or book contains inaccuracies.
Mike.
Students: We have free audio pronunciation exercises.
I could not find that at Rhymezone.com nor the Shakespeare First Folios site http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/shakespeare/folio/
Here are two Shakespearean examples: In characters, as red as Mars his heart / Inflamed with Venus. Troilus and Cressida: V, ii, 164-5
I se this simply as a version of 'red as Mars (when) his heart (is) inflamed with Venus' - a simile drawing on the supposed effect of Venus being close to Mars in the night sky and the white brightness of Venus emphasising the redness of the, er, Red Planet. Plus, of course, it is a pun on War and Love.
We would usually, I think, insert a comma after 'mars' rather than after 'characters'.
It's like 'My cat, his fur standing on end.'
And art not thou Poins his brother? Henry IV Part II: II, iv, 308
This is the part of the scene where Hal & Poins step forward to be recognised.
The Folio
http://ise.uvic.ca/Annex/DraftTxt/2H4/2H4 F/2H4 FScenes/2H4 F2.4.html has
Prin. Poin. Anon, anon, Sir.
Fal. Ha? a Sonne of the Kings? And art not thou Poines, his Brother?
The Quarto
Q/2H4 QScenes/2H4 Q2.4.html
Prince, Poynes Anon anon sir.
Falst. Ha? a *** sonne of the Kings? and arte not thou Poynes his brother?
The punctuation of the Folio accords closer to the way I would interpret the modernised text - Falstaff recognises Hal and Poins. He insults Hal by calling him a *** and implies that Poins, whom he identifies as Hal's brother, is the same.
John Dean
Oxford
"in the same category as", but what do *I* know? :-)
I would have done the same as you, and I briefly considered Donna's version to be an error, but then ... quite idiomatic, but is it an error? The lack of an explanation by Gerald makes me think other thoughts ...
Christopher has hit the nail on the head on both counts. I could go along with Skitt in regarding 'in the category with' as merely not quite idiomatic in the context (I would also have said 'in the same category as'). And though I wouldn't have used a question-mark at the end of that sentence, I had thought that it might conceivably have been defensible..g
I would have done the same as you, and I ... an explanation by Gerald makes me think other thoughts ...
Christopher has hit the nail on the head on both counts.
Wow!
I could go along with Skitt in regarding 'in the category with' as merely not quite idiomatic in the context ... have used a question-mark at the end of that sentence, I had thought that it might conceivably have been defensible..g
I have to be really blunt and say that "in the category with" is not only "not quite idiomatic", but it is also, in my humble opinion, essentially gibberish. Moreover, the question mark at the end of Donna's bizarre sentence is utterly superfluous and is not, therefore, even remotely "defensible".
Christopher
My e-mail address is not 'munged' in any way and is fully replyable!
Teachers: We supply a list of EFL job vacancies
Haven't read the book, but a posting on rec.arts.books.reviews suggests that Truss is debunking rather than bunking:
Removed)
In passing, she casts doubt on the widespread belief (urban ... from a contraction of "his", as in "John his book".
In order to preserve playfulness I haven't looked this up; but if anything I'd guess that the s of his was itself ultimately a genitive ending.
And what do we find in OED under 'his' but ''(OE. his (hys), genitive of personal pron. he and hit, it.'..'
John 'playful be damned' Dean
Oxford
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