On Sun, 28 Apr 2024 13:39:33 +0100
Chris Elvidge <chris@mshome.net> wrote:

[]
> >
>
> Lyons made ice-cream (back in the day)
>
>
Walls have ears

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

Kerr-Mudd, John <admin@127.0.0.1> wrote:

> Chris Elvidge <chris@mshome.net> wrote:
[...]

> > Lyons made ice-cream (back in the day)
> >
> Walls have ears

They use everything, including the squeak.

--
^Ï^. Sn!pe, PA, FIBS - Professional Crastinator

My pet rock Gordon just is.

"Hibou":
> I've come across this problem with 'châteaux'. On the whole, I think it
> better in English to write 'châteaus'

Better yet, "chateaus" (or "chateaux").

> and pronounce the s...

Certainly. Or the X like an S, i.e. like a Z.

> I'm currently reading 'Ashenden', and find the repeated mentions of
> 'Lyons' trip the eye (though not so much as to conjure up nippies)...

I have no idea what "nippies" are.
--
Mark Brader | "Could you not begin at the beginning and
Toronto | go on until you come to the end, and then,
msb@vex.net | if you are able to, stop?"
--Dorothy L. Sayers, "Murder Must Advertise"

My text in this article is in the public domain.

On Sun, 28 Apr 2024, at 21:29:05, Mark Brader posted:
>"Hibou":
>> I've come across this problem with 'châteaux'. On the whole, I think it
>> better in English to write 'châteaus'
>
>Better yet, "chateaus" (or "chateaux").
>
>> and pronounce the s...
>
>Certainly. Or the X like an S, i.e. like a Z.
>
>> I'm currently reading 'Ashenden', and find the repeated mentions of
>> 'Lyons' trip the eye (though not so much as to conjure up nippies)...
>
>I have no idea what "nippies" are.

I know, though I mis-read it the first time.

Speaking of foreign plurals, I found myself today wondering where to
plant all those little gerania that I'd bought last week.
There once was a Dormouse who lived in a bed
Of delphinia (blue) and gerania (red),
And all the day long he'd a wonderful view
Of gerania (red) and delphinia (blue).
with apologies to the estate of A.A. Milne.

--
Paul W

Le 28/04/2024 à 06:40, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>
> I've said "de l'eau plate" [1]. Oh, wait, that wasn't in English.
>
> [1] It's not unusual, in a French restaurant, to be asked whether you
> want your water flat [2,3] or gaseous.
>
> [2] How did I know that water is feminine? There's something interesting
> going on here. When I first started to learn French, a major difficulty
> was that all nouns have gender. Now that I've reached a reasonable level
> of fluency, I find that I pick the right gender instinctively. What used
> to be a big problem is now no big deal. What was the fuss about?

I'm impressed. There are still words that catch me out unless I think
about them. 'Service', for example, has an 'e' at the end and a soft
sibilance that seems feminine to me, but the word is masculine. And then
there are the unreasonable complications - adjectives before and after
'gens' being of different genders (bonnes gens, gens bons)¹, it being
'le Covid' to the French and 'la Covid' to the Académie and the
Canadians, 'amour' being masculine and 'amours' feminine, reading 'un
livre' and spending 'une livre'....

No, I'm afraid I'm still fussing over gender, moi.

¹And that's not the end of it. Larousse takes 282 words to describe how
'gens' behaves as to gender:

<https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/gens/36606>

On 29/04/24 15:15, Hibou wrote:
> Le 28/04/2024 à 06:40, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>>
>> I've said "de l'eau plate" [1]. Oh, wait, that wasn't in English.
>>
>> [1] It's not unusual, in a French restaurant, to be asked whether
>> you want your water flat [2,3] or gaseous.
>>
>> [2] How did I know that water is feminine? There's something
>> interesting going on here. When I first started to learn French, a
>> major difficulty was that all nouns have gender. Now that I've
>> reached a reasonable level of fluency, I find that I pick the right
>> gender instinctively. What used to be a big problem is now no big
>> deal. What was the fuss about?
>
> I'm impressed. There are still words that catch me out unless I think
> about them. 'Service', for example, has an 'e' at the end and a soft
> sibilance that seems feminine to me, but the word is masculine. And
> then there are the unreasonable complications - adjectives before and
> after 'gens' being of different genders (bonnes gens, gens bons)¹, it
> being 'le Covid' to the French and 'la Covid' to the Académie and the
> Canadians, 'amour' being masculine and 'amours' feminine, reading
> 'un livre' and spending 'une livre'....
>
> No, I'm afraid I'm still fussing over gender, moi.
>
> ¹And that's not the end of it. Larousse takes 282 words to describe
> how 'gens' behaves as to gender:
>
> <https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/gens/36606>

I think of those as boundary cases, the cases on the edge that trip up
lots of people. The covid examples show that even native speakers don't
always agree about edge cases.

I don't claim complete mastery of French gender. I'm just happy that I
get more than 90% of it right.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

Hibou wrote:

> ¹And that's not the end of it. Larousse takes 282 words to describe how
> 'gens' behaves as to gender:

Wow. I'm just glad that I usually can recognise it by sight.

--
Bertel
Kolt, Denmark

On 29/04/24 15:15, Hibou wrote:

> And that's not the end of it. Larousse takes 282 words to describe how
> 'gens' behaves as to gender:
>
> <https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/gens/36606>

OK, it's worse than I thought. That article brings up details that I
didn't even know about.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

Le 28/04/2024 à 22:29, Mark Brader a écrit :
> "Hibou":
>>
>> I'm currently reading 'Ashenden', and find the repeated mentions of
>> 'Lyons' trip the eye (though not so much as to conjure up nippies)...
>
> I have no idea what "nippies" are.

I sympathise. I often come across words I don't know, or half know and
am unsure of - but I've stumbled on a trick, which I'll share with you.

It's to look them up.

There are dictionaries, of course, and encyclopaedias (Wikipedia is also
nifty for translating between languages), Google Web Search, and Google
Image Search....

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippy>

Decades ago, my father tried to follow a recipe given to him by a friend
who was a French chef - I mean a real one, with a certificate on his
wall saying he was a Knight of the Order of the Golden Frying-Pan or
some such. This recipe called for a chinois. It seemed unlikely that a
Chinaman was required as an ingredient, so my father asked round, but
no-one knew what it could be. He did eventually find out that it was a
kind of conical sieve.

These days it's much easier:

<https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chinois+cuisine&udm=2>

(Especially for things technical, Google Image Search is often better
than trying to decipher some lexicographer's stumbling description.)

On 28/04/2024 16:50, jerryfriedman wrote:
> occam wrote:
>
>> On 28/04/2024 06:02, jerryfriedman wrote:
>>> occam wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 26/04/2024 15:24, HVS wrote:
>>>>> Exploring a bit on the frequency of use (not particularly
>>>>> interesting), I noticed that Collins and M-W give "plateaus" and
>>>>> "plateaux" as the plural forms in English (no problem), but with
>>>>> identical pronunciation for both spellings (fully anglicised,
>>>>> pronouncing the "x").
>>>
>>>> Bolleaux to that! (I've never heard anyone pronounce the 'x' in
>>>> plateaux.)
>>>
>>> Have you heard anyone say "plateaux" in English?
>>>
>
>> Yes, I had an English teacher of Geography. I would have noticed.
>
> How do you know your teacher wasn't saying "plateaus"?  Did he or
> she pronounce it the same as "plateau"?
>
> I hope it's clear that Harvey meant "identical pronunciations for
> both spellings", as he said.  If you pronounce the x in "plateaux",
> the word rhymes with "foes", not with "folks".
>

Yes. I should have read the original post more carefully. To me,
pronouncing 'plateaus' and 'plateaux-with-an-x' is not the same thing.
'Plateaux-with-an-x' is a fox-pas.

In article <v0knfq$svq5$1@dont-email.me>,
Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>I've said "de l'eau plate" [1]. Oh, wait, that wasn't in English.
>
>[1] It's not unusual, in a French restaurant, to be asked whether you
>want your water flat [2,3] or gaseous.

or sparkling -- which I guess is the same as gasified but focuses on
the result rather than the process. (Eau gazéfiée vs. eau pétillante,
although there may be some official or marketing distinction that I'm
not aware of.)

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

In article <v0oeo6$10sv$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,
Garrett Wollman <wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article <v0knfq$svq5$1@dont-email.me>,
> Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

> >I've said "de l'eau plate" [1]. Oh, wait, that wasn't in English.
> >
> >[1] It's not unusual, in a French restaurant, to be asked whether you
> >want your water flat [2,3] or gaseous.

> or sparkling -- which I guess is the same as gasified but focuses on
> the result rather than the process. (Eau gazéfiée vs. eau pétillante,
> although there may be some official or marketing distinction that I'm
> not aware of.)

> -GAWollman

Theer used to be a cafe on a railway staion platform on my route into
London which offered "Bottled water - flat or bumpy"

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té²
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

charles <charles@candehope.me.uk> wrote or quoted:
>Theer used to be a cafe on a railway staion platform on my route into
>London which offered "Bottled water - flat or bumpy"

This might have more to do with the bottle (flat and smooth
vs. bumpy and ridged) than the water itself! The bottom of
bottles can have bumps in particular.

(Of course, I'm not trying to teach grandma to suck eggs here,
just putting in my two cents for any foreigners who might
be reading along.)

Le 29/04/2024 à 08:53, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :
> Hibou wrote:
>>
>> that would mark us as foreign. I suppose it's like articles in English,
>> whether or not to slip in a 'the' or an 'an'. This seems to be a
>> stumbling block for almost everyone whose first word wasn't 'Mum'.
>
> I don't have that problem - so far as I know.

No, I don't think you do. I was too sweeping - it will depend on the
difference between the languages in this respect.

Grammatical gender is, of course, a fundamental difference between
English and French.

> Could you produce a sentence where that would be difficult?

I expect so.

On 29/04/24 17:53, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Hibou wrote:
>
>> that would mark us as foreign. I suppose it's like articles in
>> English, whether or not to slip in a 'the' or an 'an'. This seems
>> to be a stumbling block for almost everyone whose first word wasn't
>> 'Mum'.
>
> I don't have that problem - so far as I know.

I have the impression that Danish and English are largely in agreement
about when to use an article, despite the differences in how the
articles are expressed. In other words, you have the advantage of having
a native language that is similar to English.

It seems to me that non-native speakers of English who have trouble
using articles fall into two quite distinct categories.

1. Where their first language does not have articles. Many Asian
languages are in that class, and it must be tricky using a feature that
your own language doesn't have.

2. Where their first language has stricter rules about articles. For
example, French largely requires that every noun have either a definite
article or an indefinite article, or some reasonable equivalent, while
there are plenty of cases in English where the null article is the right
choice.

I'm not sure about the intermediate case, where the first language is
one of the (many) languages that have a definite article but no
indefinite article.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

Le 28/04/2024 à 13:39, Chris Elvidge a écrit :
> On 28/04/2024 at 11:42, Hibou wrote:
>>
>> I'm currently reading 'Ashenden', and find the repeated mentions of
>> 'Lyons' trip the eye (though not so much as to conjure up nippies).
>> Lyon to me is a singular town. There's 'Marseille' and 'Marseilles' as
>> well, of course. C'est dur, la vie.
>
> Lyons made ice-cream (back in the day)

And were pioneers in computing (pipes up my unconscious, late as usual),
with Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) in 1951.

<https://archivesit.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/leo-2-01-740x524.jpeg>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer)>

500 kHz - quite nippy for its day.

On 30/04/2024 at 08:28, Hibou wrote:
> Le 28/04/2024 à 13:39, Chris Elvidge a écrit :
>> On 28/04/2024 at 11:42, Hibou wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm currently reading 'Ashenden', and find the repeated mentions of
>>> 'Lyons' trip the eye (though not so much as to conjure up nippies).
>>> Lyon to me is a singular town. There's 'Marseille' and 'Marseilles'
>>> as well, of course. C'est dur, la vie.
>>
>> Lyons made ice-cream (back in the day)
>
> And were pioneers in computing (pipes up my unconscious, late as usual),
> with Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) in 1951.
>
> <https://archivesit.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/leo-2-01-740x524.jpeg>
>
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer)>
>
> 500 kHz - quite nippy for its day.
>

And a bad pun to boot!!

--
Chris Elvidge, England
I WILL TRY TO RAISE A BETTER CHILD

On 30-Apr-24 11:27, Chris Elvidge wrote:
> On 30/04/2024 at 08:28, Hibou wrote:
>> Le 28/04/2024 à 13:39, Chris Elvidge a écrit :
>>> On 28/04/2024 at 11:42, Hibou wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm currently reading 'Ashenden', and find the repeated mentions of
>>>> 'Lyons' trip the eye (though not so much as to conjure up nippies).
>>>> Lyon to me is a singular town. There's 'Marseille' and 'Marseilles'
>>>> as well, of course. C'est dur, la vie.
>>>
>>> Lyons made ice-cream (back in the day)
>>
>> And were pioneers in computing (pipes up my unconscious, late as
>> usual), with Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) in 1951.
>>
>> <https://archivesit.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/leo-2-01-740x524.jpeg>
>>
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer)>
>>
>> 500 kHz - quite nippy for its day.
>>
>
> And a bad pun to boot!!

Boots is an entirely different company.

--
Sam Plusnet

In article <HNbYN.33432$Y79f.13823@fx16.iad>,
Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:
>On 30-Apr-24 11:27, Chris Elvidge wrote:
>> On 30/04/2024 at 08:28, Hibou wrote:
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer)>
>>>
>>> 500 kHz - quite nippy for its day.
>>>
>>
>> And a bad pun to boot!!
>
>Boots is an entirely different company.

But their walls are very green.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

On 30-Apr-24 20:57, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> In article <HNbYN.33432$Y79f.13823@fx16.iad>,
> Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:
>> On 30-Apr-24 11:27, Chris Elvidge wrote:
>>> On 30/04/2024 at 08:28, Hibou wrote:
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer)>
>>>>
>>>> 500 kHz - quite nippy for its day.
>>>>
>>>
>>> And a bad pun to boot!!
>>
>> Boots is an entirely different company.
>
> But their walls are very green.

<smile>

--
Sam Plusnet

On 29/04/2024 18:15, charles wrote:
> In article <v0oeo6$10sv$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,
> Garrett Wollman <wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> wrote:
>> In article <v0knfq$svq5$1@dont-email.me>,
>> Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> I've said "de l'eau plate" [1]. Oh, wait, that wasn't in English.
>>>
>>> [1] It's not unusual, in a French restaurant, to be asked whether you
>>> want your water flat [2,3] or gaseous.
>
>> or sparkling -- which I guess is the same as gasified but focuses on
>> the result rather than the process. (Eau gazéfiée vs. eau pétillante,
>> although there may be some official or marketing distinction that I'm
>> not aware of.)
>
>> -GAWollman
>
> Theer used to be a cafe on a railway staion platform on my route into
> London which offered "Bottled water - flat or bumpy"
>

<smile> Nice. I'm not 100% sure what 'bumpy' is a translation of - if
indeed it is the result of a google translation. The usual description
would be sparkling or fizzy. ('Gaseous' would be too off-putting to a
BrE speaker.)

occam wrote:

> <smile> Nice. I'm not 100% sure what 'bumpy' is a translation of - if
> indeed it is the result of a google translation.

Maybe it's just one opposite meaning of "flat"?

--
Bertel
Kolt, Denmark

Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:

> occam wrote:

>> <smile> Nice. I'm not 100% sure what 'bumpy' is a translation of - if
>> indeed it is the result of a google translation.

> Maybe it's just one opposite meaning of "flat"?

One particularly appropriate for train passengers?

--
Jerry Fredman

Bertel Lund Hansen suggested that ...
> occam wrote:
>
>> <smile> Nice. I'm not 100% sure what 'bumpy' is a translation of - if
>> indeed it is the result of a google translation.
>
> Maybe it's just one opposite meaning of "flat"?

Context! Railway station ... next to tracks ... flat or bumpy.

/dps "dad jokes 'r' us"

--
"I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain

On 2024-05-01 00:48, occam wrote:
> On 29/04/2024 18:15, charles wrote:
>> In article <v0oeo6$10sv$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,
>> Garrett Wollman <wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> wrote:
>>> In article <v0knfq$svq5$1@dont-email.me>,
>>> Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>> I've said "de l'eau plate" [1]. Oh, wait, that wasn't in English.
>>>>
>>>> [1] It's not unusual, in a French restaurant, to be asked whether you
>>>> want your water flat [2,3] or gaseous.
>>
>>> or sparkling -- which I guess is the same as gasified but focuses on
>>> the result rather than the process. (Eau gazéfiée vs. eau pétillante,
>>> although there may be some official or marketing distinction that I'm
>>> not aware of.)
>>
>>> -GAWollman
>>
>> Theer used to be a cafe on a railway staion platform on my route into
>> London which offered "Bottled water - flat or bumpy"
>>
>
> <smile> Nice. I'm not 100% sure what 'bumpy' is a translation of - if
> indeed it is the result of a google translation. The usual description
> would be sparkling or fizzy. ('Gaseous' would be too off-putting to a
> BrE speaker.)

Maybe just a strange translation of 'bubbly'.

--
We have enough youth, how about a Fountain of Smart?