On 2024-05-05 12:54:04 +0000, occam said:

> On 04/05/2024 16:05, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> On 2024-05-04 11:18:47 +0000, J. J. Lodder said:
>>
>>> occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:
>>
>> [ … ]
>>
>>>> Note to JJLodder: When I expressed this view some time ago ("I can
>>>> discern the difference between a Dutch speaker and a Flemish speaker at
>>>> a hundred paces") you denied it vehemently, for reasons unknown.
>>>
>>> Correction, for reasons 'known only to you'.
>>> You must be mistaken, have misremembered,
>>> or you are just mistaking somebody else for me.
>
> No, you are the only Dutch person here who gets over-defensive about
> issues concerning the Dutch and their language. I am not mistaking you
> for anyone else.
>
>>>
>>> And you must have great hearing,
>>> to hear anything at all at a hundred paces.
>>> For me that is possible only with Americans in a big restaurant.
>
> The exaggeration ("at 100 paces") was for comic effect. I'm sorry it got
> lost in translation.
>
>>
>> Yes, but it's not only the sound, but also the gestures. In 1983 we were
>> in a train in China. We were at one end of carriage, and at the far end
>> there were a group of non-Chinese people talking. My wife said, "They're
>> Argentinian". "How can you possibly tell from this distance, where we
>> can't hear anything?" I asked. She walked down to the other end and
>> listened to them for a moment, and reported back: "They're Argentinian".
>>
>> For a long time I couldn't recognize an Argentinian accent, but well
>> before that I could easily recognize a Chilean imitating an Argentinian.
>
> Thank you for re-recounting that story, Athel. I believe you told the
> same story - about your wife's ability to recognise the Argentinian from
> afar - last time around also.

Alas. When you get to my age you don't always remember what you've said
before, and how many times.
>
> Google groups being semi-retired, I could not find my original post.
> Perhaps you can, in your own archive of 'sent' posts?

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:

> On 04/05/2024 16:05, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> > On 2024-05-04 11:18:47 +0000, J. J. Lodder said:
> >
> >> occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:
> >
> > [ … ]
> >
> >>> Note to JJLodder: When I expressed this view some time ago ("I can
> >>> discern the difference between a Dutch speaker and a Flemish speaker at
> >>> a hundred paces") you denied it vehemently, for reasons unknown.
> >>
> >> Correction, for reasons 'known only to you'.
> >> You must be mistaken, have misremembered,
> >> or you are just mistaking somebody else for me.
>
> No, you are the only Dutch person here who gets over-defensive about
> issues concerning the Dutch and their language. I am not mistaking you
> for anyone else.

Just your misperception.
As a matter of fact I avoid the subject as much as possible.

Jan

On 2024-05-02, Adam Funk wrote:

> On 2024-05-02, lar3ryca wrote:

>> Disclaimer: I have read this in a book about mushrooms, but cannot claim
>> that the book was correct.
>>
>> All non-gilled mushrooms are non-poisonous.
>
> That is NOT true (like most simple, general rules about
> fungi). Earthballs (Scleroderma species) and some boletes
> (mushroom-shaped with pores under the cap instead of gills) are the
> ones I can think of offhand.

The deadliest mushrooms that I'm aware of (poisonous [1] Amanita
species; Galerina marginata) are gilled --- I wonder if the mistake
comes from misnegating that.

I have heard that all plants that smell like onions or garlic are safe
to eat (not necessarily good) but I'm not 100% sure that it's true & I
don't rely on that alone. I do sniff every leaf as I'm picking Allium
ursinum, however, since that's the best way to exclude lilies.

[1] Some Amanita species are edible & good, but they're not
recommended for non-experts because they are difficult to
distinguish from poisonous ones, e.g., A. rubescens &
A. pantherina. Personally, I wouldn't try.

--
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.
---President Muffley

Adam Funk wrote:

> I have heard that all plants that smell like onions or garlic are safe
> to eat (not necessarily good) but I'm not 100% sure that it's true & I
> don't rely on that alone. I do sniff every leaf as I'm picking Allium
> ursinum, however, since that's the best way to exclude lilies.

That reminds me that there once was a Danish health food shop that sold
tea made from Lilly of the valley. I have forgotten if anyone died, but
the customers certainly got health problems.

I knew about the plant because my mother often warned us about the water
in the flower vases, and she specifically mentioned Lilly of the valley.

--
Bertel
Kolt, Denmark

On 2024-05-08, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:

> Adam Funk wrote:
>
>> I have heard that all plants that smell like onions or garlic are safe
>> to eat (not necessarily good) but I'm not 100% sure that it's true & I
>> don't rely on that alone. I do sniff every leaf as I'm picking Allium
>> ursinum, however, since that's the best way to exclude lilies.
>
> That reminds me that there once was a Danish health food shop that sold
> tea made from Lilly of the valley. I have forgotten if anyone died, but
> the customers certainly got health problems.

Liljekonval [1], really? That's incredibly irresponsible.

[1] I admit that I got that from Wikipedia.

> I knew about the plant because my mother often warned us about the water
> in the flower vases, and she specifically mentioned Lilly of the valley.

I guess it might occur to kids to drink that?

--
In the fall when plants return, by harvest time, she knows the score,
ripe and ready to the eye, but rotten somehow to the core.

Adam Funk wrote:

> Liljekonval [1], really? That's incredibly irresponsible.
>
> [1] I admit that I got that from Wikipedia.

That's where I got Lilly of the valley.
>
>> I knew about the plant because my mother often warned us about the water
>> in the flower vases, and she specifically mentioned Lilly of the valley.
>
> I guess it might occur to kids to drink that?

I don't think so, but my mother saw problems everywhere and warned us
about them.

--
Bertel
Kolt, Denmark

On 2024-05-08 16:56:17 +0000, Bertel Lund Hansen said:

> Adam Funk wrote:
>
>> Liljekonval [1], really? That's incredibly irresponsible.
>>
>> [1] I admit that I got that from Wikipedia.
>
> That's where I got Lilly of the valley.

My father's cousin and his family lived on lilies of the valley during
the 1950s and the first years of the 1960s. I don't mean they ate them!
Lilies of the valley flower about two weeks earlier in South Devon they
do in colder parts of England, especially London, and they commanded
high prices at Covent Market (London). Although he was on paper a
wealthy man (High Sheriff of Devon in 1971), his large house was very
expensive to maintain, and they rented out half of it. He owned several
houses in the village, as well as farmland around it, but in the 1950s
these things consumed almost as much money as they generated in income.
>>
>>> I knew about the plant because my mother often warned us about the water
>>> in the flower vases, and she specifically mentioned Lilly of the valley.
>>
>> I guess it might occur to kids to drink that?
>
> I don't think so, but my mother saw problems everywhere and warned us
> about them.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles (centre of the world
today) for 37 years; mainly in England until 1987.

On 08/05/24 22:56, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2024-05-08, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:

>> I knew about the plant because my mother often warned us about the
>> water in the flower vases, and she specifically mentioned Lilly of
>> the valley.
>
> I guess it might occur to kids to drink that?

Never be surprised about what children will consume.

When I was four or five years old, my younger brother told me he had
found some "lollies", and offered me one. I spat mine out, but Michael
had eaten a couple and had to be taken to hospital to have his stomach
pumped out. The "lollies" were snail bait.

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

On 09/05/24 09:34, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
> When I was four or five years old, my younger brother told me he had
> found some "lollies", and offered me one. I spat mine out, but
> Michael had eaten a couple and had to be taken to hospital to have
> his stomach pumped out. The "lollies" were snail bait.

ObUsage: instead of "taken to hospital" I could have written "taken to
the hospital", which some will see as an Americanism. It would have been
correct AusE in this case, though. We lived in a small town that had
only one hospital.

I couldn't say "taken to the hospital" in Newcastle, because it would be
ambiguous.

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

On 2024-05-09, Peter Moylan wrote:

> On 09/05/24 09:34, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>
>> When I was four or five years old, my younger brother told me he had
>> found some "lollies", and offered me one. I spat mine out, but
>> Michael had eaten a couple and had to be taken to hospital to have
>> his stomach pumped out. The "lollies" were snail bait.
>
> ObUsage: instead of "taken to hospital" I could have written "taken to
> the hospital", which some will see as an Americanism. It would have been
> correct AusE in this case, though. We lived in a small town that had
> only one hospital.
>
> I couldn't say "taken to the hospital" in Newcastle, because it would be
> ambiguous.

I think AmE generally uses "taken to the hospital" (maybe "a
hospital") even in a city with more than one; it's just the idiom.

--
Radiation! Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about
it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad
for you. Pernicious nonsense! ---J Frank Parnell

Adam Funk wrote:

> I think AmE generally uses "taken to the hospital" (maybe "a
> hospital") even in a city with more than one; it's just the idiom.

Two[1] Ngrams with:

"taken to hospital:eng_gb_2019,taken to the hospital:eng_gb_2019"

and

"taken to hospital:eng_us_2019,taken to the hospital:eng_us_2019"

show that the use is pretty much reversed between the two countries with
"the" winning in the USA.

There's an error source because some of the hits may have added the
hospital name, and others not.

[1] There's not enough space in one.

--
Bertel
Kolt, Denmark