From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V10 #460 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, December 12 2001 Volume 10 : Number 460 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: The True North strong and free! [0% RH] ["Fric Chaud" ] Theremin band ["Shane Apple" ] Kenster feedback geekery [Mark Gloster ] Theremins [Ken Weingold ] Re: oh Ken [Ken Weingold ] The crux of the biscuit [grutness@surf4nix.com] Re: The crux of the biscuit ["Fric Chaud" ] Re: The True North strong and free! [0% RH] [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: Theremin band [Glen Uber ] Re: Theremin band [Capuchin ] RE: apostrophes and commas [Capuchin ] Re: The True North strong and free! [0% RH] ["Stewart C. Russell" ] The Asking Tree ["marcus slade" ] I'm an old pedant... ["Redtailed Hawk" ] Re: The Asking Tree [JH3 ] Re: Invasion of the kamikaze camels [Michael R Godwin ] possessive-compulsive ["Natalie Jane" ] Re: Party this weekend [Christopher Gross ] RE: apostrophes and commas [Christopher Gross ] These were amusing [Mark Gloster ] Re: Party this weekend [Ken Weingold ] Burning with Confusion [hydra@voicenet.com] Re: Burning with Confusion [Ken Ostrander ] Re: Burning with Confusion [Christopher Gross ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 21:46:15 -0500 From: "Fric Chaud" Subject: Re: The True North strong and free! [0% RH] On 11 Dec 2001, at 9:54, Stewart C. Russell wrote: > > we have chips, cheese and gravy in Glasgow too, y'know. It isn't > anything special. Perhaps, but the potatoe was invented by Antoine Parmentier. The Scottish simply appropriated it. - -- Fric Chaud ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 22:21:00 -0500 (EST) From: Jill Brand Subject: oh Ken Ken W. wrote: Can the NYC people come? Which subway station do get get off at? - - -Ken ps: Jill, the preposition at the end was for you ;-) ********************************* And the double "get" was there because you wanted me to go get my reading glasses and make sure I wasn't seeing things. I'm rather fond of final prepositions. They make one feel so, well, tentative, and isn't that what it's all about? Anyway, Mr. Ken, come to Boston to see Dave Davies, whom you are fond of, at the Paradise in April. He's someone you won't be disappointed in (how am I doing?). Jill ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 03:34:29 +0000 From: "Shane Apple" Subject: Theremin band The Lothars are an all-instrumental band consisting of three theremins and one guitar. The guitar seems to only be there for rhythm though. Their first album (which seems to have an unholy FOUR theremins on some tracks) wasn't all that pleasing, so I never picked up their second. I think I remember reading that another theremin player was added for that one which may be more excitement than I could take. By the way, it sounds pretty much like you think it does. - --Shane _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 20:06:09 -0800 From: Mark Gloster Subject: Kenster feedback geekery I know more than a tiny amount about this shit. I am not a real engineer, but I play one on glamorous teevee shows. I've had to deal with grounding problems in my studio and more RF (Radio Frequency) and EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) issues in designing printed circuit boards than I can count in my days of geekdom. In all likelihood it is some mixture of the following: The tuning of your antenna may not be sending a clear single frequency. This may allow it to get around any existing RF filtering that is in place for your studio current. Similar tuning issues may be at issue for your broadcast amp. In any case, the antenna and/or broadcasting amplifier are probably too close to the studio. The cables in the studio are acting as dipole antennas, receiving some of the signal that you are sending. Remedies: 1. Assure that the antenna is properly tuned- it will also broadcast farther and much cleaner if it is correct. 2. If you can move your broadcast hardware as far away from the studio, that would be best. In this case, it may be best if the amp and tower were physically very separate from the studio. You should also go across an isolation transformer between studio and the broadcast system. I use a Furman Iso Patch IP-2B (about $60) when I have to make a bridge between different systems (this allows me to selectively separate grounds that should be separate) 3. Cabling: A. Eschew using 2-wire cabling in the studio in favor of balanced 3-wire cabling- like ordinary microphone cables and tip/ring/sleeve 1/4" cabling. It will reject noise better and avoid floating grounds. B. Use filters and isolation transformers on power in the studio. Configure everything that is connected in any way to your console from a single power source. This is the act of "star grounding" to avoid adding the length of ground from different circuits to the chain. A really good RF filter in the power strip may be able to cut some of the noise from the C. Unplug everything from the wall and the board when not in use and keep all grounds as short as possible. Remember, all of the cabling in your studio makes for a really impressive antenna. D. I've traced some of my studio noise/reception/etc. stuff to a single bad cable or a crappy wall-wart. Merely unplugging everything and one-by-one replugging stuff may tell you where your problem really is. 4. You can construct a faraday cage around your broadcast facility to help isolate the studio from RF. This is ridiculous and very spendy. It also won't solve the problem if the noise comes in through the wires anyway- which is probably what is happening. 5. Uh, er, MIT, you say? Can't you just yell out the window that you need an analog engineer and have thousands of people with slide rules and calculators and vacuum tubes and taped glasses falling over themselves to help you out? I'm thinking that that may be your best bet, especially if the problem is big. You may really want to focus your person search to somebody who can deal with real world problems more than someone who just does well with theoretical problems. Wish y'all the be(a)st. Hope this helps at all. - -Markg ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 23:13:53 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Theremins If anyone lives in the Boston area and likes Theremins, check out The Electric Logs. They are AWESOME. . - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 23:29:43 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: oh Ken On Tue, Dec 11, 2001, Jill Brand wrote: > Ken W. wrote: > Can the NYC people come? Which subway station do get get off at? > > And the double "get" was there because you wanted me to go get my reading > glasses and make sure I wasn't seeing things. Typo. No one saw nuthin'. > Anyway, Mr. Ken, come to Boston to see Dave Davies, whom you are > fond of, at the Paradise in April. He's someone you won't be > disappointed in (how am I doing?). Since I missed the last one, I will definitely try and make that one. It would be nice to see all the Boston area Kinks people again. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 17:56:31 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com Subject: The crux of the biscuit >I was taught you -do- use an apostrophe with plural possesives; you just >place it outside the s. plural possessives, yes. Plurals themselves, no. Sorry for the confusion. To recap: The book's - belonging to the book The books' - belonging to the books The books - more than one book. And when the noun ends in an -s, you get guided by the pronunciation, as is the case with: >We have a square in town which belongs to St >James, and on different corners of _the same square_ it is called St >James's Square and St James' Square This depends on whether you pronounce it as "JAYMZIZ" or "JAYMZ" Jah-mess James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 00:08:25 -0500 From: "Fric Chaud" Subject: Re: The crux of the biscuit On 12 Dec 2001, at 17:56, grutness@surf4nix.com wrote: > The book's - belonging to the book > The books' - belonging to the books > The books - more than one book. What about the Es? English: sandwich/sandwiches French: sandwich/sandwichs In French, both are pronounced "sandwich". Such simplicite! - -- Fric Chaud ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 21:47:05 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: The True North strong and free! [0% RH] Fric Chaud wrote: > On 11 Dec 2001, at 9:54, Stewart C. Russell wrote: > > > > we have chips, cheese and gravy in Glasgow too, y'know. It isn't > > anything special. > > Perhaps, but the potatoe was invented by Antoine Parmentier. The > Scottish simply appropriated it. i thought the potatoe was invented by Dan Quayle.... of course, the potato was invented by some forgotten Incan bloke. or was it Mayan. and if your going to fry them after cutting them in strips, and pour cheese on them, the cheese should be accompanied by chili, not gravy. ===== "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -- John F. Kennedy Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 00:02:33 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: Party this weekend On Tue, 11 Dec 2001, Ken Weingold wrote: > On Tue, Dec 11, 2001, bayard wrote: > ps: Jill, the preposition at the end was for you ;-) Please don't call me Jill, it's not my name. See, one of the problems is that a bunch of 19c pedants, mistakenly believing that all languages had to act like Latin or Greek, attempted to force-fit rules from those languages into English. The "ending in a preposition" prohibition was one of them, I believe: my fave rebuttal to which remains Mr. Churchill's "That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put." (Another is the ridiculous stricture against split infinitives - of course you can't split an infinitive in Latin: since they're one word, it's imfuckingpossible to split them. Well, maybe not.) Annoyway, as to the latest inquiry of our Quebecois correspondent: English nouns that end in the following sounds - s, z, ch, sh, j, x - generally take an -es to form their plurals (unless there's an "e" already there), since the "s" sound of the plural is hard to pronounce w/o adding another syllable. The -es reflects that extra syllable. (Since I said "sounds," I could have simplified by eliminating the "x" - since that's not really its own sound, now is it: -ks. Oh. And "zh" as in, uh, a drunk person saying "James.") Someone else will now cough up exceptions. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing.... ::As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. __Neal Stephenson, SNOW CRASH__ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 22:44:54 -0800 From: Glen Uber Subject: Re: Theremin band The Lothars don't happen to be an relation to Lothar and the Hand People, do they? Are they a spinoff or perhaps a clever tribute? On Tuesday, December 11, 2001, at 07:34 PM, Shane Apple wrote: > The Lothars are an all-instrumental band consisting of three theremins > and one guitar. The guitar seems to only be there for rhythm though. > Their first album (which seems to have an unholy FOUR theremins on some > tracks) wasn't all that pleasing, so I never picked up their second. I > think I remember reading that another theremin player was added for > that one which may be more excitement than I could take. > > By the way, it sounds pretty much like you think it does. > > --Shane > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. > http://www.hotmail.com > > Cheers! - -g- "Microsoft is often described as 'the 800lb gorilla of the computer business'. This is unfair to gorillas who, by and large, are peaceful and unaggressive creatures." --John Naughton ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 22:52:26 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Theremin band On Tue, 11 Dec 2001, Glen Uber wrote: > The Lothars don't happen to be an relation to Lothar and the Hand > People, do they? And if so, what's the relationship to Mike Meyers' character on Saturday Night Live, "Lothar of the Hill People"? J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 23:09:13 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: apostrophes and commas On Tue, 11 Dec 2001, dmw wrote: > > Out of interest, does anyone know of a resource (preferably on the > > Internet, I suppose) that provides a 'definitive' reference for this > > sort of thing? > > dunno about definitive, but this might be more entertaining than most. > > http://www.asstr.org/~FatherIgnatius/Grammar.html That's a good, useful little guide. I have an old copy of A Writer's Reference by Diane Hacker. It's not only a good style book, but it is comb-bound to allow it to lay flat while open to a particular page for easy reference while working. About apostrophes, it says that a possessive singular noun should carry an 's unless the pronunciation (with an extra sylable for the 's) is awkward. In the case of awkward pronunciation, a simple ' will do. Both uses are acceptable. Plural possessive nouns that end in s get a single apostrophe at the end. The exception here is when the plural possessive ends in s, but so does the singular. This is mostly true with proper nouns, like our friend Chris Gross. (We covered this very topic some months back and Chris was the example.) We would talk about "Chris's house" because the extra syllable is not awkward, though you could get away with simply writing about "Chris' house". The same is true for "Chris Gross's house" or "Chris Gross' house". But when it's a plural possessive, like the house belonging to the Gross family as a whole, we might write "the Gross's house" or "the Gross' house". So, like the singular, it is often done the latter way, but both are acceptable. As for abbreviations, numbers mentioned as numbers, letters mentioned as letters and words mentioned as words, we use an 's. The exceptions here are for decades such as "the 1980s" and abbreviations that are not separated by periods. Properly, Ken might have said he has two 20s in his pocket because he was not talking about the numbers (one of my mathematics professors used to say "Nobody's ever seen a 2." -- He'd be quite impressed to see Ken's 20, if that were what Ken had.), but the denomination of currency. The bills are called 20s or twenties, but the numbers are 20's (or twenties). The word possessive has four S's. The Bush sisters often use fake I.D.'s. However, it's usually easier if you just write those things out in their long form and avoid the whole mess altogether. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 08:41:25 +0000 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: The True North strong and free! [0% RH] Fric Chaud wrote: > > Perhaps, but the potatoe was invented by Antoine Parmentier. The > Scottish simply appropriated it. 'invented' might be rather a strong word, but the Scots had to let the rest of the world come up with something -- inventing everything else is tiring work. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 09:27:07 +0000 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: apostrophes and commas Matt Browne wrote: > > Out of interest, does anyone know of a resource (preferably on the > Internet, I suppose) that provides a 'definitive' reference for this > sort of thing? there is no definitive guide to English. Our Collins English Dictionary -- not bad for a single-volume dicty that you can still pick up -- used to have a style guide, dotted through the book as usage notes. We were asked to produce a (London) Times dictionary based on the same source, but based on The Times's [how would YOU deal with that one?] style guide. Almost everything in The Times guide neatly and exactly contradicted our style guide. I'm rather fond of The Guardian's Style Guide, which they've very graciously put online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/ Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 09:28:46 +0000 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: apostrophes and commas Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > > (Don't know about what the Brits use, though.) Fowler, Hart, and a great deal of scepticism. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 05:45:12 -0500 From: "jbranscombe@compuserve.com" Subject: EMI Hey! Natalie you've seen Bablicon! One of my favourite bands ever! Anyway. Three or four years ago I was searching EMI on the net and it still tickles me pink that in the process I discovered the wonderful Experimental Musical Instruments gang at windworld.com. (Someone else has mentioned their Gravicords, Whirlies etc. stuff) I sent off for one of their CDs (Early Years), and it's still a joy. How about these as some of the track listings and notes - Wee Jimmie Scott Plays Abraham's Giant Rock Dulcimer The Glass Orchestra plays all glass instruments John Hajeski plays Portable Anarchy William Eaton plays 26-String Guitar and Lyrichord And a couple especially for fegs - Jim Nollman plays underwater guitar accompanied by whales. Balloons, Egg Shells, Soda Straws, Seaweed & More crafted by Robin Goodfellow and others. On the theremin front, there is an all theremin ensemble (five of the fuckers IIRC) called The Lothars (from Lothar and the Hand People I would suspect, tres drole). The first time I tried to see them one of theremins blew up. When I did catch them in action they were a wee bit dull, and yes they did manage to play in tune with one another - one of the reasons for their lack of charisma - It's all in the concept. The Nihilist Spasm Band are another crew worth checking out (at least conceptually). They started way back in the '60s and have played every week since, apparently; jamming good on their giant electric kazoos and other homemade gear. But my favourite has to be Knurl, who plays the electric toaster on the box set of the 1998 No Music Festival organised by the NSB. Boy, does he make that thing wail!!! jmbc. PS. I'm having a drinkie or two tonight at The Prince Albert, Pembridge Rd, very near Notting Hill tube from about 6ish, before heading on to the gig. It's my birthday! Everyone welcome! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 14:22:48 From: "marcus slade" Subject: The Asking Tree I've been trying to access the Asking Tree Robynbase site for the last few days with no luck. Does anyone know if there is a problem with it (Bayard?) Thanks, Marcus _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:28:19 +0000 From: "Redtailed Hawk" Subject: I'm an old pedant... Looking thru "The Chicago Manual of Style" I found a neat variation for apostrophes we all use but perhaps don't know why we're using them:"Analogous to possessives, and formed like them, are expressions based on the old genitive case, e.g., an hour's delay, in three days' time and Charles's having been there." Perrin's "The Reference Handbook of Grammer and Usage", which is a greatest hits version of his venerable "Writer's Guide and Index to English", says this about the possessive case: "With singular proper names ending in 's', usage is divided. Sometimes only an apostrophe is added: Dickens' novels. But most often both an apsotrophe and 's' are used except with the names 'Jesus' and 'Moses' and Greek names of more than one syllable ending is es, e.g., Moses' leadership, Aristophanes' plays. Also--people trying to reproduce text which uses italics may use apostrophes to transcribe the italics. ;-) Is it possible to be pedantic and chaotic at the same time:-? Kay Meaning has to be shared to be real. Mark Kingwell _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 10:28:44 -0600 From: JH3 Subject: Re: The Asking Tree > I've been trying to access the Asking Tree > Robynbase site for the last few days with no > luck. Does anyone know if there is a problem > with it (Bayard?) I'm not Bayard, but it's on our server and that server has been down for almost a week. It's IIS on WinNT, so Bill Gates is clearly to blame... Anyway, sorry about that. So Marcus, if you or anybody else has a pressing need for some RB info, send me an e-mail and I'll try to help as best I can. John "not in full control" Hedges PS: I'm actually working on a MySQL/PHP version of RB so I can move it all to a real web server, though I'm sort of stalled on it at the moment due to other crises. (I'm shooting for New Year's now.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:40:37 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Invasion of the kamikaze camels Thought you might be interested in this: What did they say the main crop was in Afghanistan? Send for Michael Herr and Tim Page ... - - MRG ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 09:21:56 -0800 From: "Natalie Jane" Subject: possessive-compulsive >Is correct. Where it gets controversial is in the case where the name >of >the possessor ends in 's'.... > >Any votes as to which is preferred? As the possessor of a surname that ends in "s," I do prefer "Jacobs's." Strunk & White claim that this is correct, and I generally go with what they say, because they're smarter than me. Re. the optigan: >And the San Diego band Optiganally Yours. Damn! I was going to say that! Bastard! n. _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 12:22:31 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Party this weekend On Tue, 11 Dec 2001, Ken Weingold wrote: > > hey all, don't forget to RSVP! Esp. if you're coming from out of town! > > > > YOU are invited! > > > > http://glasshotel.net/party.htm > > Can the NYC people come? Which subway station do get get off at? NYC people are certainly invited! (Everyone else, too.) You get off at the Shady Grove station, which is easy to find as it's at one end of the Red line. The hard part is getting on the right subway *system*.... - --Chris np: a chopping sound from the direction of my department's budget ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 12:39:38 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: RE: apostrophes and commas On Tue, 11 Dec 2001, Capuchin wrote: > We would talk about "Chris's house" because the extra syllable is not > awkward, though you could get away with simply writing about "Chris' > house". The same is true for "Chris Gross's house" or "Chris Gross' > house". > > But when it's a plural possessive, like the house belonging to the Gross > family as a whole, we might write "the Gross's house" or "the Gross' > house". While I'm happy to be the center of attention, I have two problems with the above rules. (I agree with your earlier points.) One is simple. "Gross," like "bass" or "glass" or "ass," is actually a singular noun that happens to end in a double S. The plural would be "Grosses," and the plural possessive, "Grosses'." The other is a more complicated issue. Is it proper to form the possessive of a singular word ending in a double S by simply adding an apostrophe? "Chris's" and "Chris'" are both correct, but are "Gross's" and "Gross'" both correct? I haven't consulted any style guides, but my gut instinct is to say no. It just doesn't feel right for some reason. Do any style guides address this question? Does anyone else have a gut instinct on this? This reminds me of another apostrophe problem: people who try to make a possessive by adding an apostrophe to a word ending in X or Z, like "the ax' sheath" or "the spaz' girlfriend." This is *definitely* wrong. A week or two ago I was reading a web page that referred frequently to "Oz' room," and it drove me up the fucking wall. (Of course I'm an unusually irritable person, but still....) - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 09:41:59 -0800 From: Mark Gloster Subject: These were amusing A friend who is also out of the work force sent me this. It does use a couple of expletives, but is very creative and fun: http://www.oddtodd.com/ There are some great pictures in here. I think I'll send them a pic of Dusty: http://www.mycathatesyou.com All the best, - -Markg ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 12:53:29 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: Party this weekend On Wed, Dec 12, 2001, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > On Tue, 11 Dec 2001, Ken Weingold wrote: > > > On Tue, Dec 11, 2001, bayard wrote: > > ps: Jill, the preposition at the end was for you ;-) > > Please don't call me Jill, it's not my name. Oh, sorry, Shirley. ;-) > See, one of the problems is that a bunch of 19c pedants, mistakenly > believing that all languages had to act like Latin or Greek, attempted to > force-fit rules from those languages into English. The "ending in a > preposition" prohibition was one of them, I believe: my fave rebuttal to > which remains Mr. Churchill's "That is the sort of nonsense up with which > I will not put." (Another is the ridiculous stricture against split > infinitives - of course you can't split an infinitive in Latin: since > they're one word, it's imfuckingpossible to split them. Well, maybe not.) That's funny. In a Linguistics class of mine, the teacher was talking about infixes and how English doesn't really have them. The only example he could think of was 'in-fucking-credible'. > Annoyway, as to the latest inquiry of our Quebecois correspondent: English > nouns that end in the following sounds - s, z, ch, sh, j, x - generally > take an -es to form their plurals (unless there's an "e" already there), > since the "s" sound of the plural is hard to pronounce w/o adding another > syllable. The -es reflects that extra syllable. (Since I said "sounds," I > could have simplified by eliminating the "x" - since that's not really > its own sound, now is it: -ks. Oh. And "zh" as in, uh, a drunk person > saying "James.") But when making plurals, I think the 's' and 'es' sound the same phonologically, they are only differentiated for the sake of the lexicon. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 13:03:48 US/Eastern From: hydra@voicenet.com Subject: Burning with Confusion Just like Dr. Nick Riviera, I'm totally lost at sea as to whether something that can burn is flammable or inflammable. I realize that it is "inflammable" in French and Spanish, but in my native language...? Is this a British/American usage split? Jon/Injon - --------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Voicenet WebMail. http://www.voicenet.com/webmail/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 13:18:01 -0500 From: Ken Ostrander Subject: Re: Burning with Confusion >Just like Dr. Nick Riviera, I'm totally lost at sea as to whether something that can burn >is flammable or inflammable. I realize that it is "inflammable" in French and Spanish, >but in my native language...? Is this a British/American usage split? flammable and inflammable are synonyms. go figure. i think it's the same with british and english; but the real question is "is anything really fireproof?" 'ster ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 13:34:08 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Burning with Confusion On Wed, 12 Dec 2001 hydra@voicenet.com wrote: > Just like Dr. Nick Riviera, I'm totally lost at sea as to whether > something that can burn is flammable or inflammable. I realize that > it is "inflammable" in French and Spanish, but in my native > language...? Is this a British/American usage split? "In-" is a somewhat archaic intensifier, so "inflammable" means "highly flammable." However, since "in" is much more commonly a negative prefix, "inflammable" has been fallen into disuse for fear that people will think it means "not flammable." It's not so much a British-American split as a correct-technically correct but misleading split. - --Chris, who will soon complete his end of a videotape trade with Jon ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V10 #460 ********************************