=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 4, no. 15 (18 April 1999) Editorial mailing list Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Q & A---previous queries [2gv] International English [Offshoot of [2go] US English] [2gz] Peculiarities of pronunciation [Offshoot of [2gn] Berks and other insults] [2hc] Equine quadrupeds [Offshoot of [2gz] Peculiarities of pronunciation] [2he] Preferred usage [2hf] European style guides [2hg] Gripe of the moment Q&A---unanswered query [2hd] Cockney rhyming slang Q&A---new queries [2hi] US medical publishers [2hj] Ethnic groups [2hk] Multipliers in column headings FYI [3dz] Australian slang [Offshoot of [3dy] International English Dictionary] [3ef] Jerseys and guernseys [Offshoot of [3dz] Australian slang] [3eh] EDline subject listings [6] Just for fun [8] Administration =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[2] Q & A --------------------------------------------------- ** [2gv] International English [Offshoot of [2go] US English] Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Elizabeth Murphy, emmurphy@ozemail.com.au Michele Clarke wrote: > Elizabeth Murray mentioned that the pronounciation of Book and > Booked did not vary: Don't you believe it Elizabeth, book can > be pronounced as a short u sound or as a long o, as in Ooh look > at that! Go north,as they say (in England, that is), and listen > to the difference! Agreed, but it doesn't alter my rule for doubling or not doubling the final consonant. The "northern English" uu sound is just a variant of the oo sound (a fronting of the same vowel), and doesn't change, in one speaker's idiolect, from one thing to another when a suffix is added. The same could be said of many other words. For example, I've heard "wash" pronounced as "wosh" and something like "worsh" and even "wahsh", but the speaker doesn't change to a different pronunciation for the past tense. Pronunciation isn't the criterion, anyway - emphasis is. This reminds me that there's an excellent (and many volumed) atlas of English pronunciation whose title and authors I've forgotten. Can anyone remind me? ----------------------- Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Chuck Brandstater, acreatyv1@earthlink.net Here is a point to ponder: > I once had an author who threatened an international incident > when an American journal editor changed "colour" to "color". -- Geoff Hart (quoted from another mailing list, with permission) +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2gz] Peculiarities of pronunciation [Offshoot of [2gn] Berks and other insults] Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Judyth Mermelstein, Judyth_Mermelstein@babylon.montreal.qc.ca Brushing off my very old Linguistics hat, I can say categorically that: - The pronunciation of the letter "r" varies a lot across the U.S. and Canada, as well as in the U.K., from "flap r" to Scottish-style burr to French roll. In some places, notably Boston and environs, the pronunciation of Harvard as "Haavaad" uses an "a" sound I've never heard of in U.K. speech. - I've heard natives of New Jersey and Connecticut say "cort" (long "o") for "caught"--the same sound as U.K. Standard Received pronunciation, but with an American hard "r" stuck onto it. - In the dialects I know, "Murray" NEVER can be a homophone for "Mary", "mary" and "merry", but in some it is a homophone for "Marie" while in others you can still distinguish between the two by the difference in stress. Can't say anything definitive about "moray" but I would expect it to be pronounced with a long "a" (as in the first syllable of "paper") rather than long "e" as used it "Marie" and "Murray". - "Seated" and "seeded" are homophones in some parts of the U.S., but not in others and there are many areas where people may use either. This is also true here in Eastern Canada, where using "d" for "t" in seated is likely to be low-class. I'd expect the same pattern in B.C. and Ontario but more general use of the American pronunciation on the Prairies between them. - In most of the U.S. and Canada, "ass" is used for "arse" in speling as well as pronunciation, except in families of U.K. origin and by people like me who learned the distinction from books. But the animal is usually called a "donkey" and "asses" in the Bible and elsewhere tend to raise a laugh from juveniles. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2gz] Equine quadrupeds [Offshoot of [2gz] Peculiarities of pronunciation] Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 From: Cass Peterson, cpete@nb.net Ronne Randall wrote: > We (or they) call it a donkey, or a jackass (though this is > usually applied to foolish people rather than animals) or even, > sometimes, an ass (but usually only in Biblical contexts--or > if we want to elicit giggles from young children!). Or it might > be a mule, or perhaps, in the southwestern US, a burro. Donkey, yes, or in the southwestern and western US, burro. But never a mule. A mule is the offspring of a jackass and a mare. Mule, jackass, ass, and donkey (but not burro) are all used as epithets. Ass, jackass, and donkey suggest stupid or foolish. Mule suggests stubborn, but not stupid. The purpose of the hybrid is to combine the endurance of the ass with the intelligence of the horse. Result: obstinacy. ----------------------- Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Russell Walton, daghdas.staff@dial.pipex.com In the US (and Ireland) a mule is a cross between a female horse and a male donkey, while the reverse - male horse and female donkey - is a hinny. ----------------------- Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Dave Linton, dlinton@btinternet.com I thought a mule was the hybrid (and usually sterile) offspring of a horse and a donkey. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2hd] Cockney rhyming slang Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 From: Helen Ough Dealy, words_that_work@xtra.co.nz I am trying to find a dictionary of cockney rhyming slang. Any idea where I might find one? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2he] Preferred usage Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Judyth Mermelstein, Judyth_Mermelstein@babylon.montreal.qc.ca Margaret Cooter wrote: > What is the currently preferred usage for Native Americans / > American Indians / North American aboriginals / FirstNations > people? Depends on who is doing the preferring, I'm afraid. Academic writing here in Canada tends to use "Aboriginal peoples" or "First Nations peoples" when they're trying to be strictly accurate and include more than one of the original nations; for an individual, it would probably be "Native" or "Aboriginal" if the tribe were not known. The indigenous peoples themselves don't have a word for "all Indians" and will generally identify themselves by group: Mohawk, Cree, Montagnais or whatever ("white" names), or identify themselves as belonging to the "Iroquois Nation" (referring to a grouping of related tribes which predated arrival of Europeans) or being "Dene" or "Innuk" (the names meaning "the People" in their own languages). Amongst themselves casually or when dealing with "whites" who don't know the difference, they say "Indian" or "Native" (note the capital "N"). My own preference, if that matters at all, is to say "the indigineous people of X region (that is, Haida, Salish, ...)" so as to be precise about which group(s) of people are being discussed and to identify individuals correctly by tribe and/or broader ethnic group. But I have to admit that I see "John Kee, an Aboriginal" sometimes, which to me is a blatantly bad usage. Does this help at all? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2hf] European style guides Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Naomi Laredo, naomi@smallprt.demon.co.uk Richard Harris wrote: > I am about to edit a book that includes contributions in > French, German, and Spanish. The publisher has decided to > follow the standard style guide [...] for these countries [...] > Can anyone tell me what those standard manuals are? I've attempted to find the answer to this before but have not discovered a really authoritative tome for any of these languages that is regarded as a 'bible' in the way that Chicago is. I use the following: * French: _Me/mento typographique_ by Charles Gouriou, Editions du Cercle de la Librairie, my edn 1993, ISBN 2-7654-0447-X Slim, but packed with guidelines on punctuation, word breaks, capitalisation, proper nouns, numbers, abbreviations. * German: _Duden Rechtschreibung_, vol. 1 of Der Duden in 12 Ba:nden, Dudenverlag, my edn 21st 1996 (including spelling changes), ISBN 3-411-04011-4 Introductory sections give rules for punctuation, capitalisation, abbreviations, numbers, time, etc. Main part of book is alphabetical listing of German words for spelling and word breaks. * Spanish: _El Pai/s Libro de estilo_, Ediciones El Pai/s, my edn 9th 1993, ISBN 84-86459-30-3 House style guide for journalists, so prescriptive and not always helpful to editors. Good on world-wide proper names, abbreviations; also covers common errors, typographic guidelines, conversion tables US to metric and distances from Madrid! If you haven't already done so, I recommend posting this question to the Electric Editors' sister mailing list LANGline. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2hg] Gripe of the moment Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Judyth Mermelstein, Judyth_Mermelstein@babylon.montreal.qc.ca Jane Kerr wrote: > why do authors go out of their way to avoid referring to their > work in a simple, direct manner? [...] Granted, an impersonal > style is considered 'good form' in scientific writing, but > surely if an author is referring directly to his/her own > experience, the occasional 'I' is permitted? It should be. Unfortunately, as with so many other things in life, the academic scientific community has become so much accustomed to cumbersome circumlocutions that it takes a very brave and well established author to risk saying "my previous work" or whatever else will express the idea simply and directly. Faculty advisors routinely "correct" any straightforward prose they find and warn students against ever doing it again. I gather the original idea was to make each trivial variation on previous papers sound as if had emanated from a disembodied team of angelic researchers instead of an ordinary fallible human being. Cynical, ain't I? ----------------------- Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Neville Hankins, nevhankins@compuserve.com Jane Kerr wrote: > why do authors go out of their way to avoid referring to their > work in a simple, direct manner? [...] What on earth is wrong > with 'this'? Because 'this' may be taken to refer to the last (preceding) reference quoted in the text, which might be by another author. ----------------------- Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Sarah Barrett, westowe@dircon.co.uk Reading Jane Kerr's expressive gripe about 'include' made me remember what arouses my killer instinct: 'comprise' - used either as synonymous with 'consist' (classic estate agentese, 'the house comprises of ...', but used in this sense by many academic authors who ought to know better) or where the author means 'constitutes' ('racial discrimination comprises one of the great ills of society'). I think and hope that I'm more interested in than condemnatory of 'language shift', as one could call these usages; but what irritates me in such cases is that I often suspect the author is trying to sound more authoritative or intellectually capable than s/he is. 'Comprise' seems to have designer label status, whereas poor old 'consist' and 'constitute' are despised as plain old chainstore stuff! ---------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 From: Harriet Stewart-Jones Jane Kerr wrote: > There also seems to be a certain paranoia among scientific > authors, at least, about using the first person. I find this a particular problem in medical books. I'm often amazed at the differences in opinion between doctors about how some disorders should be treated. Woe betide any editor who attempts to introduce an impersonal style into some Consultant's treatise on surgical technique! Professor X may perform the operation in that way at hospital A, but 20 miles down the road at hospital B, Professor Y would never dream of recommending that technique. A change from 'I use XXX' to ' XXX is used' may cause great offence. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2hi] US medical publishers Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Russell Walton, daghdas.staff@dial.pipex.com One of my main sources of proofreading is a UK publisher who specialises in arts therapy, social work, etc. The texts I do not have have a problem with, however, there are invariably a large number of references, with a high proportion relating to US periodicals. I am not familiar with the details of US publications within these fields, the contributors are usually inconsistent in their presentation of such referencing "irrelevancies" as titles, and the publisher is unable to provide the information I require. So, is there a publication listing the accurate titles of US journals, etc., within these fields or included in a more general medical work, preferably stating whether both volume and issue numbers are applicable? For the same publisher, I could also do with full listing of _all_ US publishers, however small. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2hj] Ethnic groups Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Harriet Stewart-Jones, HarrietSJ@compuserve.com An author recently insisted that the terms Negro (cap N) and Caucasian (cap C) should be retained in his book on Surgery because they clearly defined the ethnic groups he was referring to. I would normally change to 'black populations' and 'white populations' or some such but he said that this was too vague. I know that the CBE Manual and BMA style manual prefer black and white, and this seems to fit with current PC, but I have noticed a trend towards a tighter classification of ethnic groups in medicine. Perhaps this has something to do with developments in genetics and links between genes and resistance/susceptibility to certain diseases? Has anyone else noticed a trend here? What do you do when an author wants to use 'Negro' in this context? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2hk] Multipliers in column headings Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 From: Yateendra Joshi, yateen@teri.res.in What is a good style for multipliers in column headings within statistical tables? For instance, to indicate that every number in a column has been multiplied by 1000, the column head could read, say, Production (x 1000 tonnes) or Production (in thousands of tonnes) or Production (in thousand tonnes) or Production (tonnes), '000 or ? ---[3] FYI ----------------------------------------------------- ** [3dz] Australian slang [Offshoot of [3dy] International English Dictionary] Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Rachel Kress, r.kress@fss.uu.nl Clair Heath wrote: > Speedo was an Australian manufacturer of swimming togs. Last I > knew it was owned by the Brits. Sluggo is slang for Speedos or > any other togs. I don't know where it comes from and I've only > heard it used in relation to the kinds of togs used in > competition swimming, as opposed to the kind that one sits > around looking decorative in Maybe from 'slugging it out', or as two current Australian comedians like to say 'going/doing the hard yards'. That is to say, putting a lot of effort into something. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [3ef] Jerseys and guernseys [Offshoot of [3dz] Australian slang] Date: Thur, 15 Apr 1999 From: Anne Waddingham, Waddingham@compuserve.com Josephine Bacon wrote: > It is true about the pattern, which is still seen in the > Guernsey sweater, though only around the shoulders. The > reason is that this made it easier to identify a fisherman > washed up dead and unrecognizable after a few days in the > water! This is getting to be a rather gruesome line of discussion but readers may be interested to know why the bodies are unrecognizable - apparently the body sinks to the bottom head first (because that's the heaviest part). If the seabed is sandy, the head is gradually buried but the wave action detaches the rest of the body, which floats to the surface, and may eventually be washed ashore. This happened to the brother of an elderly relative, who died in a WWII convoy, and she was summoned to Liverpool to identify the body, which she could only do because of a ring he was wearing (in the absence of the right type of woolly pully). Call me strange, but I quite like the idea of ending up like a frond of seaweed, swaying to and fro in the current, my toes being nibbled by fishes. It also brings a new connotation to the term "bottom feeder"! +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [3eh] EDline subject listings Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 From: Iain Brown, iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk I should have added to my posting in last week's issue that back issues of EDline, Grapevine and LANGline are available from the Electric Editors Web site. You might find it easier to use the new EE sitemap to locate the back issues of the respective mailing list: < http://zeus.slais.ucl.ac.uk/idb/ee/sitemap.htm > ---[6] Just for fun ------------------------------------------- "Education, education and education", no. 10 In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems, verses and literature. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "How to write good", no. 9 Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. ---[8] Administration ------------------------------------------ EDline provides the opportunity for a weekly online discussion of matters editorial and editorial business. * POSTING MESSAGES TO THE LIST All messages to be posted to the list should be sent to Jane Kerr, at: bywater@zetnet.co.uk Include as the subject line, "EDline [topic]", where [topic] is the subject under discussion. Topics might include areas such as Grammar, Spelling, American English or Punctuation. Messages should be pertinent to the basic premise of the list; they may be withheld, or redirected if more pertinent to one of the other mailing lists. The spelling and grammar of messages will *not* be corrected, but some editing of length may be undertaken. Quoting from previous messages: quote as much as you need to make the context of your reply clear, but no more. The sections of EDline are as follows: [2] Q & A -- questions and answers [3] FYI -- items of general interest [4] Business matters -- items of a business nature [5] Bookmarks -- useful Web pages [6] Just for fun -- time for letting hair down! [7] Miscellaneous -- odds and sods * Administration All messages of a subscription or administrative nature should be directed to Iain Brown, at: iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk with "EDline ADMIN" in the subject line. * To subscribe to Grapevine To subscribe to Grapevine, the discussion list concerned with matters computing, please e-mail Electric Editors at: ElectricEds@bigfoot.com with [Subscribe Grapevine] in the subject line. * To subscribe to LANGline To subscribe to LANGline, which discusses modern languages, translation and editing in non-English languages, please e-mail Electric Editors at: ElectricEds@bigfoot.com with [Subscribe LANGline] in the subject line. * Homepage and back issues: Visit the Electric Editors at: < http://www.ikingston.demon.co.uk/ee/ > Back issues of all three mailing lists are available on the Mailing Lists archive page. --------- ** The views expressed in this mailing list are strictly those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the moderators or of the Electric Editors. ** Articles (c) 1999, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996, 1997, Iain Brown Compilation (c) 1999, The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 4.15 Next issue: 25 April 1999 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=