Ardith Hinton wrote to James Bradley, "Rules...  2B." on 07-18-05 21:36

 AH>  You might prefer to avoid the whole issue by using
 AH>  the American spellings....  ;-)

 JB>  Wash your mouth out with soap! Young lady, I'll have
 JB>  you... My oh my!!!

 AH>           Gosh... it's been awhile since I was called a
 AH> young lady!  8-)  Okay, Fowler it is.  The library might
 AH> have MODERN AMERICAN USAGE.  I don't....  :-))

If they couldn't manifest their destiny twice by force, I refused
steadfastly that they should succeed by my laziness. "Colour" and
"Theatre" were my line in the Forty-Nineth... 


 JB>  Why do I *have* to place that punctuation mark inside
 JB>  the quotations?

 AH>  You don't have to do it if you're quoting a single word
 AH>  in isolation as you did with "syllable".

 JB>  See, a communication major (Just about wrote a Doctoral!)
 JB>  insisted to me the opposite. Guess either she failed the
 JB>  test, or I know what question to ask. <-:

 AH>           Well... you do seem to know what questions to
 AH> ask!  It's a lot easier to decipher them, however, when you
 AH> can give examples as you did there....  ;-)

Now you're pushing it! 



 AH>  I've also seen signs with descriptions like "Chinese
 AH>  smorgasbord", "Vietnamese cuisine", and "BLT on a
 AH>  bagel"... another aspect of the cultural mosaic.  :-))

 JB>  That *is* rather funny!

 AH>           Funny/sad... and an indication of where so much
 AH> confusion arises with phonics.  Why do we spell "cuisine"
 AH> the way we do??  Because we copied the word from the
 AH> French, and that's the way they spell it!  What I find sad
 AH> is that the young folk working in these restaurants don't
 AH> get the picture.  They don't know why I'm chuckling at the
 AH> idea of serving bacon on a bagel, for example....  :-)

You were expecting a Mc. Croissant with frog-legs? No, they toast you a
bagel and slab a piece of back bacon and egg on it! As sacrilegious
as a cheeseburger!?! Well, maybe just a sign of our times that
ignorance is easier to understand. 

 JB>  Can't say I don't play with "Vas is das?" It's mostly
 JB>  German, so I've heard?

 AH>           IIRC it's "Was ist das?"... and yes, that's German.

You likely have it.

 JB>  All four Grand-parents spoke Ukrainian, and knew little
 JB>  English at all. There were times when the only sitter on
 JB>  short call...


 AH>           So your mother spoke perfect English, because she
 AH> had learned it as a second language, while you devoted your
 AH> energies to swearing in Ukrainian?  ;-)

When the conversations turned interesting, everyone started talking
another language. After a while, you pick up the interesting bits, and
get reprimanded for repeating something that only sounded funny in the
context you heard it.

Naturally, when the cousins started learning the language, there was
inevitably one scalawag of a parent who would teach us the real
meaning of the jokes our parents thought we would never catch onto. 

Dad was always one of those scalawags, as long as we didn't ask at too
early an age what he was saying. Mom, claims she doesn't remember much
Ukrainian at all, as she never practises it. Dad, had to do business
with many Slavs, and often converses with others in one dialect or
another. 

 JB>  ... I can also call you a few choice descriptions,
 JB>  after confusing me again with my English. 


 AH>           I survived umpteen years of teaching junior high school.  I'm
 AH> used to getting flak from the guys in the back row.  And while

Hold on... I resemble that remark. Er... I mean... Guess you have *me*
 pegged! 

 AH> you were in the washroom I figured out where you're having
 AH> many of your difficulties with spelling!  You tend to
 AH> confuse words such as tear/tier & lose/loose because the

"Tier" as in terraced? "Tear" as in ripping fabric, or salty
excretions from ones eye?

"Lose" as in misplaced, and "Loose" as in goose? 

No, I don't think I am too far off on my comprehension, but I tend to
type on a reluctant keyboard, and speed through the spell-check, and
proofreading. Just in this packet, I know I have an "it's" when I know
it should be an "its". That's something that the same communications
major taught me about a decade ago, but sometimes my wayward brain
slips on, or I might peck on the "'" but it just doesn't register in
the editor, and I don't have the critical eye to catch it on my
speed-proofreading. /-:

I have been trying to catch myself in those, "I knew that!"
situations. 

 AH> combination of vowels doesn't make sense to you.
 AH> Similarly, you tend to use contractions when possessive
 AH> pronouns are needed... e.g. you're/your, it's/its,
 AH> they're/their.  I see a lot of errors like that in Fidonet
 AH> generally.  As I discovered years ago, when I see the same
 AH> errors repeatedly I begin to doubt my own spelling....  :-/

Oh... Not on my behalf, I hope! (-:

Like I say, I know I know better, but my attempts at pounding these
 messages out, and that one message may have a timely issue that would
 make it less effective if delayed, I tend to lax if I have a "their"
 when I meant to "there"...

Not much of an excuse, I know, but that's my story, and I'm sticking
 to it. 

 JB>  ... If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.


 AH>           Yup.  If you really hadn't a clue, you wouldn't
 AH> think to ask....  :-)


I know I know better, but there's no excuse why I now don't practise
the knowledge. But why isn't college spelt "colledge"? Do they not
attempt to dispense knowledge in a college?


"WAAA... When's recess?" 


... I made a mistake onc, and you just witnessed it.
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