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Post by Verbivore on Dec 3, 2019 19:17:46 GMT
Maybe it's age or because I'm not in Australia, but I was unaware of all of those! Phrase of the year for us Brits has to be "on the table". Seems that everything is either on the table, not on the table, or off the table. My slightly irregular adoption used to be described as "under the table", meaning that officialdom was bypassed.
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Post by Paul Doherty on Dec 3, 2019 20:16:07 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 3, 2019 21:46:16 GMT
LOL Decades ago when I was hosting a large dinner, a male guest commented on a female guest's big appetite – to which the woman replied: "I can eat most men under the table". Sometimes the brain–mouth connection is faulty. Hilarity – a good digestive aid – ensued.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 6, 2019 4:13:57 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 6, 2019 9:44:40 GMT
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Post by Dave on Dec 7, 2019 4:38:47 GMT
Thanks for remembering! I also included the hyphen, as well as the space: your (British) no-one is our (American) no one, for instance. Member Ben wrote a summary, well, maybe more of an expansion: Is the apostrophe a punctuation mark.pdf (96.06 KB). I retired and moved a few miles away from San Jose to Scotts Valley (yes, there is no apostrophe!) near Santa Cruz, CA. I just updated my forum profile to reflect that.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 7, 2019 10:06:57 GMT
It's good to "hear" from you Dave – and thanks for the update! Wherever in CA you are, I pray – secularly, natch ;-) – that it's not burning. It's rather warm here on the seventh day of Aussie summer, with 40+°C days and 30°C nights; with more than a million acres of bushfire (wildfire) bounding three sides of us (side #4 is the coast/beach) – though no longer perilously close. We've been told to evacuate only twice so far. Although accustomed to bushfire season in my native region and as a longtime rural / non-urban dweller, I rate this season far beyond the ordinary: it really is CA-style wildfire, not just our "usual" fare. The whole eastern side of the continent is afire. I saw recent wildfires in the States (virtually, not physically present) then the Amazon (since when does rainforest burn?!). Now the rainforests I live among / drive through are reduced to ashes. Perhaps it's punishment for misuse of the apostrophe! To all and to language:John Richards's retirement announcement seems to have stirred the English-writing world. Since the news hit the headlines (a slow news day with politicians and royalty, no doubt), articles on the apostrophe – pro and con, but more pro – have proliferated. It's nice to see the topic have a good airing in English-language media worldwide. (Of course it won't last; some "celebrity" peccadillo will steal tomorrow's headlines.) Through listening, emails, or readings this week I've gained this impression: very few of those who've expressed an apostrophic view agreed with the ABC's resident language maven: Tiger Webb. The chap – a former personal acquaintance – may well have a degree in Linguistics but he seems to advocate firmly for a very, er, liberal approach, including ditching "our mark". How dare he! TW and I have had many a debate, virtual and real, but I've thrown in the towel. It's like debating "belief" – pointless. Our "Aunty" ABC's News Online service dishes up multimedia but still presents mostly in text, which is why it's my #1 daily source. Because of ignorance, carelessness, publishing deadlines etc. Aunty's orthography approaches cacography too often; and mis-apostrophisation is rampant! At least when I am sufficiently motivated to email Aunty with a "suggestion" she deals with the matter summarily. She ignores / rejects perhaps 15% of my "notes"; I can live with 85% "validation". An unfortunate parallel is Aunty Beeb; the BBC's online news service has been steadily descending to lower levels of giving a s**t. Ooh dear! Am I sounding like John R? LOL
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 8, 2019 12:36:15 GMT
Good afternoon! It is scary reading about the bushfires in Oz and I am glad that we don’t have to worry about that kind of thing in the UK . A hundred of acres alight anywhere here makes the national news. I gather that temperatures in Brisbane (already 30 Celsius) are set to “soar” over the next few days. My Aussie family are due here on Wednesday when it is forecast to feel like zero Celsius — my granddaughter says she is looking forward to being cold and wet!
Of course, I agree with Vv and blame these problems, and many more of the world’s woes, on the misuse of apostrophes and commas — it is the punishment of the gods. I am afraid that things can only get worse now that the APS has closed and the recently retired Vv has “thrown in the towel” in regard to his disagreement with Tiger Webb. I notice that you describe TW as a “former personal acquaintance”. Can one have an acquaintance who is not “personal”? Would you have allowed that to pass in your former rôle?
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 8, 2019 19:49:49 GMT
[...] I notice that you describe TW as a “former personal acquaintance”. Can one have an acquaintance who is not “personal”? Would you have allowed that to pass in your former rôle? Hmmm ... . Perhaps not, LJH. Although there are business acquaintances I wouldn't describe as personal, so maybe. :-)
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Post by Dave on Dec 8, 2019 23:09:25 GMT
[...] I notice that you describe TW as a “former personal acquaintance”. Can one have an acquaintance who is not “personal”? Would you have allowed that to pass in your former rôle? Hmmm ... . Perhaps not, LJH. Although there are business acquaintances I wouldn't describe as personal, so maybe. :-) I was wondering about the former aspect of the acquaintance: Once acquainted, can one be unacquainted?
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 9, 2019 4:31:41 GMT
In TW's case, I think so: though perhaps de-acquainted or disacquainted, or even dequainted / disquainted? Our parting – after many impassioned debates and a great geographical remove – wasn't quite amicable and we've not bothered with each other for a decade. I suppose we "unfriended" each other, to employ current idiom. I can't claim to have any current acquaintance with the chap. (I wonder if my emails to his employer, usually directed to individual reporters / authors / editors and acted upon most times, ever filter through to TW. If they do, I'm sure they're promptly spiked to save for my funeral pyre. LOL)
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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 9, 2019 5:38:55 GMT
I think that you can have former and/or personal acquaintance.
We can happily say “I used to know” such-and-such a person, even though in a sense the “knowledge” is still there. What we’re expressing is that the level of familiarity is now very much reduced, to the extent that we know nothing of each other’s current life (and may not even recognise each other). In the same way, a former acquaintance would be someone we knew slightly, and now know hardly at all.
The “personal” bit suggests, as Vv says, the type of familiarity - a personal connection, as opposed to a business or circumstantial connection?
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 9, 2019 7:28:05 GMT
I think that you can have former and/or personal acquaintance. We can happily say “I used to know” such-and-such a person, even though in a sense the “knowledge” is still there. What we’re expressing is that the level of familiarity is now very much reduced, to the extent that we know nothing of each other’s current life (and may not even recognise each other). In the same way, a former acquaintance would be someone we knew slightly, and now know hardly at all. The “personal” bit suggests, as Vv says, the type of familiarity - a personal connection, as opposed to a business or circumstantial connection? Thank you, Dave. You said it more clearly than I thought it. :-)
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 9, 2019 7:34:17 GMT
Volcano eruption makes verbivore's dayHow pleasing to see et cetera spelled out – in the news at that!"We're expecting burns, there could be respiratory issues, there could be head injuries, fractures, et cetera from rocks or stones […]"Not only et cetera, but a preceding Oxford comma! Oh happy day! I'll even overlook the borderline commas following burns and issues. (I'd have used semicolons; they're suffering underemployed these days, poor things.)Farther down the page is another pleaser: "She added there seemed to be no danger for the people in the coastal areas, farther from the volcano". Bonus!There’s no byline, so I can’t send flowers or smileys to the scribe. (I wondered if the piece had originated in the Aotearoa / New Zealand media, because the style is not what one is accustomed to these days on Aunty ABC – it’s a level above that.) And here I be huffing and puffing over symbolic squiggles while the world burns and explodes. Such is life.
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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 9, 2019 16:29:53 GMT
Volcano eruption makes verbivore's dayAnd here I be huffing and puffing over symbolic squiggles while the world burns and explodes. Such is life. Reminds me of this:
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