=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 7, no. 66 (1 March 2002) Editorial mailing list (digest version) Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Q & A [2sh] Collaborateur [2si] Yiddish influences on English [2sj] Western artists [2sk] Naming of English shires [Offshoot of [2sg] Pronounciation of 'Worcestershire'] [2sq] Marine forecast area names [Offshoot of [2sk] Naming of English shires] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[2]-- Q & A -------------------------------------------------- ** [2sh] Collaborateur Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 From: Barbara Collishaw, Barbara.Collishaw@pwgsc.gc.ca Rod Stedman wrote: > How about plain "worker", so that no bosses (where there are > any) need feel slighted by the "co-" prefix. Or you could try > "members of staff", or more loosely, "those working for the > company". David Ibbetson wrote: > Marks and Spencer used to have this sort of structure. They had > ?have a special name for their workers. Somebody else should > remember it. Many egalitarian operations call their staff members 'associates' Try IKEA: they have this kind of structure, in a number of countries. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2si] Yiddish influences on English Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 From: Paul Kirkman, pkirkman@bigfoot.com Josephine Bacon wrote: > > ... Leo Rosten ... made a fortune from "The Joys of Yiddish" > > but knows no Yiddish and the book is full of mistakes ... > > I have read that the second edition, written by others, is > substantially more accurate. Is this so? [snip] > I know that I have seen mistakes in it, especially confusing > Yiddish and Hebrew. Sounds like a case of what, with a little poetic licence and adaptation, one might call what Stephen Pinker calls (with conscious irony), in The Language Instinct, a 'language maven'. Sounds like a case of real 'chutzpah' - the chump. 1973 Milwaukee Jrnl, 4 Mar. V. 4/1 Miss Decter (no Ms., please) is one of the culture 'mavins' of New York, to use a newly chic term borrowed from the Hebrew. The word derives from the Hebrew (or Yiddish?) for 'understanding'. Pity Rosten evidently did not have much - beyond marketing. Is a touch of Lithuanian scepticism in order - or is this getting esoteric and off the track? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2sj] Western artists Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 From: David Price, dprice@appleonline.net I thought you might like this sentence from an article on a Dutch photographer that I recently had to edit: "If we see merely a cut-off, for example of a hotel or rented room, a lift corridor or shower cabin, then we soon get the feeling that the inconsequentiality of what we see stretches out, perhaps, across the whole world, that nowhere in the universe is there an open window, that the whole universe is made up of rooms, corridors, lifts and shower cabins that all, for good or ill, have been plastered, whitewashed, wallpapered, taped or boarded up so that 'privacy' is ensured, so that everything that happens happens in such a way that it is simultaneously as if it did not happen because what happens does not have any radiance, any radius of action because each occurrence immediately sinks with no reverberation into these curtains, carpets, mattresses, tiled or upholstered walls, MDF doors and frosted windows in which what has (not) happened only lives on like an invisible virus." ----------------------- Date: Tues, 26 Feb 2002 From: Miranda Barker, wordwiseed@aol.com Was that the edited result or the starting point?! ----------------------- Date: Tues, 26 Feb 2002 From: Marianne Youdale, MYoudale@aol.com Oh my goodness, one can only assume that the author was trying to illustrate the stretching out of a verbal virus! +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2sk] Naming of English shires [Offshoot of [2sg] Pronounciation of 'Worcestershire'] Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 From: Patricia Hart, Patricia.Hart@wdebroe.com David King wrote: > Hampshire is also often abbreviated to Hants. > > As for Worcestershire, it was joined with Herefordshire and > became Hereford and Worcester, although I read that the UK Govt > planned to split them up again. Not sure now what the situation > is there. As of last year (I think), Herefordshire and Worcesterhire are seperate entities once more, although I believe the county boundaries aren't quite the same as they were when it was originally joined together. Also, as someone who lived in Hereford and Worcester, as was, for much of my youth I've always pronounced it Wuss-tershire (both county and sauce!) ---------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 From: Eddie Kent, edlineek@aol.com Hants has no point. I think it's the only one. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2sq] Marine forecast area names [Offshoot of [2sk] Naming of English shires] Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 From: Sue Innes, sueinnes@pacificcoast.net Here in Canada weather can mean bad weather. They say 'We're expecting some weather'. I always have to talk back to the radio/TV and explain how nonsensical that sentence is. ---------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 From: Alex Gray, wordworks@gairloch.co.uk Marianne Youdale wrote: > Don't get us going on the subject of weather in England ... True enough, but could I point out we weren't talking about the weather in England. Ross & Cromarty may have changed names over the years, but it has always been in Scotland! ---------------------- Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 From: Caroline Burns, carolinegburns@hotmail.com I moved from Washington, D.C. to Nashville, Tennessee in 1980. I'd lived several years earlier in Texas, and so was surprised to hear on the local news that there was "no weather to the west of us." =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 7.66 Admin page: < http://www.electriceditors.net/edline/admin.htm > ** 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) 2001, 2002, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996--2002 Iain Brown Compilation (c) 2002, Iain Brown / The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=