From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #458 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, December 10 2003 Volume 12 : Number 458 Today's Subjects: ----------------- bear the brown lung" [John Barrington Jones ] More Worksongs [Jeff Dwarf ] RE: Feggy Geeky SF TV Scorecard ["Bachman, Michael" ] RE: looking for jobs [Miles Goosens ] Re: Regional conflicts [Miles Goosens ] Reppiz on My Spine ["Rex.Broome" ] Re: Reppiz on My Spine [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: looking for jobs [HSatterfld@aol.com] Re: Finest worksongs/DVDs and dates [grutness@surf4nix.com] Re: Reppiz on My Spine; or, Chris on Buffy -- Again [Christopher Gross ] Re: Regional conflicts [Capuchin ] Re: Regional conflicts [Capuchin ] Re: looking for jobs [Johnathan Vail ] Re: Regional conflicts [Capuchin ] Re: looking for jobs [steve ] Re: Regional conflicts ["Fortissimo" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 14:24:45 -0800 (PST) From: John Barrington Jones Subject: bear the brown lung" On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, The Mammal Brain wrote: > off the top of my head (probably some of these will already have been > mentioned). must be LOTS more... > > -- dan bern, "Joe Van Gogh", "Three Wishes" There's a good Dan Bern parody of "Puttin' On The Ritz" called "Workin' At The Ritz" which outlines the plight of the workers there. Its from a much bootlegged 1985 show at some University in Chicago. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 14:27:31 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: More Worksongs King Missile "Take Stuff from Work" "Sensitive Artist" The Police "Don't Stand so Close to Me" ===== "Senator John McCain recently compared the situation in Iraq to the Vietnam era -- to which President Bush replied, 'What does Iraq have in common with drinking beer in Texas?'" -- Craig Kilborn "I don't think the Bush administration lied to us about Iraq. I think it's worse than that. I think they fooled themselves. I think they were conned by Ahmad Chalabi. I think they indulged in wishful thinking to a point of near criminality. I think they decided anyone who didn't agree with them was an enemy, anti-American, disloyal. In other words, I think they're criminally stupid." -- Molly Ivins __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:35:39 -0500 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Feggy Geeky SF TV Scorecard Miles scribed: >We didn't watch it, but given how much I loved Morgan and Wong's work on THE X-FILES and Season Two of MILLENNIUM, plus >Kristen Cloke as Lara Means on that latter show, I really ought to watch it someday. Kristen Cloke was also a guest star on The X-Files episode "The Field Where I Died". You can nitpick the timeline of the reincarnations in the episode, but it's one of my favorite X-Files. Michael B. NP Johnny Cash American Recordings ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:29:14 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Feggy Geeky SF TV Scorecard On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Miles Goosens wrote: > >Hey, how are those unaired Firefly episodes? Pretty good, I'm guessing. > > Haven't had time to see them yet. I'll watch them this weekend. Chris? Not me -- my Amazon order just shipped yesterday, so I won't receive it for a while yet. Maybe "Sex Dwarf" could be considered a job-related song? - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 16:56:23 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: RE: looking for jobs At 04:03 PM 12/10/2003 +0000, Dr John Halewood wrote: >noone seems to write songs >about the joys or otherwise of being a CEO or media magnate: "Sci-Finance" >by Peter Hammill is as close as I can get to it. Ooh, "Joe" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, from THE LAST DJ. "My name's Joe, I'm the CEO..." I've never heard Randy Newman's BORN AGAIN, but looking at the lyrics, seems like "Mr. Sheep" and maybe "It's Money That I Love" (I have heard the latter song, just not the whole album) might fit, though it's sort of an inference from the cover art and context that the narrator of the latter might be a mogul of some sort. Getting away from the CEOs and back to less handsomely compensated jobs, how about Tom Petty's "Nightwatchman" (on HARD PROMISES)? "Drugstore Truck Drivin' Man," which I know best from its Jason & the Scorchers cover. I'll say more about the Byrds later. And, to bring us back to the quoted portion of this message, Jason & the Scorchers' "Fly By Nite Operator" is about a successful businessman with a honky-tonk jones. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:07:55 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: Regional conflicts At 05:28 AM 12/10/2003 -0800, Capuchin wrote: >December seven and seven December are both common. I don't know why folks >like Chris and Miles claim to have never heard it. Could be that folks in >the East are more limited in their date expressions. Jeme, next time you're puzzled about why some people get irked at the things you say on the list, you might think back to this lil' post, where you not only indulge your usual penchant for proscription, but imply that Chris and I don't know our own experiences or are being disingenuous about them just to prove a trivial point. And though I'm not taking it in an offensive way, "limited" adds unfortunate word choice to injury. I'm not sitting here blowing smoke out of my ears or anything, especially over such a relatively unimportant matter, but expecting people to be persuaded when you pepper your arguments with phrases like "that's just dumb"? Well, that's just dumb. from the land of apparently less heterogeneous date expressions, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:18:59 -0800 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Reppiz on My Spine Eb: >>What I'll never understand is why French people apparently write all >>names with the last name in caps, a la "Robyn HITCHCOCK." And nobody ever talks about how American book spines have the left of the text at the top, continental European books have the left of the text at the bottom, and the English, per "la vice Anglaise", appear comfortable going either way. Jeff D: >>>> I Don't Like Mondays -- Boomtown Rats -- no, that's >>>> school >>Nah, that's about killing people!! Which pays the bills for quite a few celebrated persons... >>I mean, it's not as weird as the last years of NEWHART, or as surreal as THE >>YOUNG ONES or the 2nd year of the sadly ignored JOHN >>LARROQUETTE SHOW, Oh ho, Miles pulls another one out of the Broome Family Guilty TV Pleasures closet. To this day we still quote the "Laroquette Dates a Chick in His Writing Class Only to Realize He's the Subject of Her Character Study" episode. To wit: "Yes, yes, she was a psycho bitch. A real, real psycho... (turns page)... bitch." Errrr... guess you had to see it. >>I didn't like DOWN WITH WILCO, Seems to me that the Minus 5/YFF split disc from a few years back had a bunch of working stiff odes, including one called something like "Mamie (someone), Employee of the Month", and "Lonely Spartanburg Flower Stall", and something about somebody's spiritual something store. (All Music What?) Obviously hazy on that release (two whole records at once, dude) but both of them are better than Down With Wilco in my book. Gots more Robyn, anyway. "Tracy Jacks" is a pretty good "working drone finally snaps" tune, although I'm not the biggest Blur apologist of all time. >>>>Especially since the hardcore DA crowd felt that their show was sacrificed >>>>to Joss Whedon as a political move on Fox's part. >>If true, that must have been quite the passing fancy, given that they canned >>FIREFLY after only half a season. [other true things snipped] Absolutely, it made no sense, but these are nerds I'm talking about. I think it had to do with the fact that the cancellation of DA happened at waaayyy the last minute and around the same time that Fox was courting Whedon. I was enough of a DA fan to be checking up on the renewal status and see the uproar, but by no means do I think it held any water. >>I'm counting the days until you get hooked on BUFFY. I share your dislike >>of High School As Easy Trope, but there are exceptions, y'know. Prolly won't be long. An increasingly close friend is going to require this of me very soon, I think. Again, Buffy 'n' me, it was mostly timing. I know fans have differing opinions of the various seasons, but at about the time I was willing to bite the bullet, all the fans I know said it was going to hell and not to bother. So I skipped another season only to have everyone get back on board more enthusiastic than ever. Always jumping on the wrong train, me. Now, as to the Lists of Finest Worksongs (and a few other recent lists), fun is fun, and digesters such as myself might get a little slack, hopefully, but... umm... and not to be a fegnazi, but... could we, like, read everyone else's lists before we write up a new one that half duplicates stuff that's already been posted? People? - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:43:59 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Reppiz on My Spine "Rex.Broome" wrote: > And nobody ever talks about how American book spines > have the left of the text at the top, continental > European books have the left of the text at the > bottom, and the English, per "la vice Anglaise", > appear comfortable going either way. Left of the text? > "Tracy Jacks" is a pretty good "working drone > finally snaps" tune, although I'm not the biggest > Blur apologist of all time. Those three Blur albums (MLIR/PL/TGE) have several work songs. No time to list them at the moment though. ===== "Senator John McCain recently compared the situation in Iraq to the Vietnam era -- to which President Bush replied, 'What does Iraq have in common with drinking beer in Texas?'" -- Craig Kilborn "I don't think the Bush administration lied to us about Iraq. I think it's worse than that. I think they fooled themselves. I think they were conned by Ahmad Chalabi. I think they indulged in wishful thinking to a point of near criminality. I think they decided anyone who didn't agree with them was an enemy, anti-American, disloyal. In other words, I think they're criminally stupid." -- Molly Ivins __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:58:22 EST From: HSatterfld@aol.com Subject: Re: looking for jobs The Rainmakers' "Drinkin' on the Job" lists different expressions for being drunk which correspond to different vocations. "The farmer, he got plowed" etc... Not laugh out loud funny, but I enjoy it every time I hear it. Hollie ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 13:02:46 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com Subject: Re: Finest worksongs/DVDs and dates >For a mix, I'm trying to come up with songs about work, careers, >occupations...either generally or about specific jobs. Any ideas? (I have >a few, yes...) The factory - Warren Zevon Home counties boy - Martin Newell Paperback writer - Beatles Maggie's Farm - Dylan Money for nothing - Dire Straits Workin for a living - The Nationals (IIRC - some Toronto band, anyway) In the Navy - Village People (!) My work is so behind - Residents Like my job - Blam Blam Blam Private Dancer - Tina Turner Did they understand? - trad (? the only version I've heard is by Max Boyce) The Gasman Cometh - Flanders & Swann We work the black seam - String Bell boy - The Ooo ... and about 75,000 songs that developed from slave work songs (Old man river, Pick a bail o' cotton, et al) - --- >> here in NZ I'd say 95% of DVD players are multi-region and dual-format. >> With most of our DVDs coming from Australia, the US, southeast Asia, and >> the UK, it would be silly for them to be otherwise. > >Am I wrong in recalling that region coding is actually ILLEGAL in NZ >because of the anti-protectionist legislation that prevents people from >screwing your little island nation with just such swindles? you could be right there. I'm not up on the legislation, but it would make sense. - --- >Query: Do you call the first two days of December "December one and two" >or "December first and second"? personally, I call them the first and the second, but a lot of people are calling 'em December one and two. Strange. My apologies in that it seems it's not a NAmerican thing. Perhaps it's come here througyh Australia. Wherever - it can go away again. James 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, 10 Dec 2003 20:13:57 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Reppiz on My Spine; or, Chris on Buffy -- Again On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Rex.Broome wrote: > >>I'm counting the days until you get hooked on BUFFY. I share your dislike > >>of High School As Easy Trope, but there are exceptions, y'know. > > Prolly won't be long. An increasingly close friend is going to > require this of me very soon, I think. That being the case, let me repeat my standard advice that you should definitely watch every episode of Buffy *in order*. Admittedly the first season was a bit tentative and very low-budget, and the true classic period doesn't start until partway through season 2. Nevertheless, you'll enjoy things best if you have seen all the early episodes and know the background to the later ones; and most important, if you watch each episode in order then all the surprising plot developments will be fully, enjoyably surprising. I'd also recommend the DVDs over the syndicated reruns shown on FX and other networks, which have a couple of minutes carved out of each episode to make room for more commercials. I actually received my Buffy season 5 and Firefly DVDs today, even though Amazon just shipped them yesterday, and even though I chose the free shipping option. Haven't watched anything yet, but I did notice that the Firefly set puts a lot of episodes in a different order than they originally aired in (or however you would say that in correct English), not just "Serenity." Looking forward to 'em, Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:07:39 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Reppiz on My Spine On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > "Rex.Broome" wrote: > > And nobody ever talks about how American book spines have the left of > > the text at the top, continental European books have the left of the > > text at the bottom, and the English, per "la vice Anglaise", appear > > comfortable going either way. > > Left of the text? ...the left of the text being that which contains the first letter. In other words, when the books are sitting on their ends, spine out, (as they might on a library shelf) and all with covers facing the same direction (each front cover touching the back cover of the next book), American books read titles from top to bottom (so you have to tilt your head to the right) and European spines read from bottom to top (so you have to tilt your head to the left). I'm taking Rex at his word, of course... I don't know enough about those practices to make that generalization. Oh... and I also don't have to tilt my head in order to read things not oriented horizontally, I was just describing the orientation with respect to the level line between your eyes. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:20:42 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Regional conflicts On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Miles Goosens wrote: > At 05:28 AM 12/10/2003 -0800, Capuchin wrote: > >December seven and seven December are both common. I don't know why > >folks like Chris and Miles claim to have never heard it. Could be that > >folks in the East are more limited in their date expressions. > > Jeme, next time you're puzzled about why some people get irked at the > things you say on the list, you might think back to this lil' post, > where you not only indulge your usual penchant for proscription, but > imply that Chris and I don't know our own experiences or are being > disingenuous about them just to prove a trivial point. And though I'm > not taking it in an offensive way, "limited" adds unfortunate word > choice to injury. Now, see, this really did surprise me. I do (and did) kind of see how someone could take the word "limited" to be a dig... I knew it wasn't and was kind of purposely leaving it there as a joking dig (a joke because it's a stupid thing for a person to consider a point of pride) but still a secondary meaning. But I really don't see why you took the earlier part as injurious at all. First, I don't see what I wrote was any kind of proscription. I was writing about how something IS DONE. I did go on to write about how one way of doing things makes a whole lot less sense, but I don't see how stating an opinion is any kind of prohibition. Second, I wasn't trying to say y'all are disingenuous. I think, however, that "never" is a really strong word and you can't really know for sure that you've NEVER heard someone use those expressions. You claim to have never heard it and that's about all that is strictly true. I wasn't trying to undermine that view at all. I think this is a far cry from writing something like "Chris and Miles, who claim to not be child molesters, have never heard it." or some crap like that. I thought it was a legitimate way of expressing the truth of the matter. > I'm not sitting here blowing smoke out of my ears or anything, > especially over such a relatively unimportant matter, but expecting > people to be persuaded when you pepper your arguments with phrases like > "that's just dumb"? Well, that's just dumb. Well, I didn't think that was really hurtful or anything because I wasn't saying somebody was dumb, just that the method of expression isn't the most expressive or even logical. More on that in my reply to Jeffrey. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:42:36 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Regional conflicts On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Fortissimo wrote: > > December seven and seven December are both common. I don't know why > > folks like Chris and Miles claim to have never heard it. Could be > > that folks in the East are more limited in their date expressions. > > I rarely hear either of those as well (here in the Midwest). Could be that you, like Chris mentioned, hear it and assume the "th" was intended, but not strongly vocalized... But I do concede that it's perhaps rare where you are... it's not the most common way to express the date, but it does happen. I guess I should have written "December seven and seven December are equally common". > Of course - but language isn't a logic operation. It evolves > historically, and what communicates isn't always what's logical. That's absolutely true... however, there are more things to consider than whether or not the person understands what date you're trying to convey. > You kn bi laik Dzhordzh B. Shau and spel evrythyng fnetykli, but yr wrdz > wyl bi mch hardr for pipl t rid. First, do you really talk like this? Seems there are lots of missing syllables and the pronunciations are really strange (rid?). The greatest problem with this approach is that it introduces into the written word MORE of the problems associated with the spoken word and removes standards (namely, spelling) that can help us communicate when things like accent and dialect get too disparate. It took me a while to puzzle out what you wrote above because I clearly don't talk like you do. It's false laziness to put that much of the effort of communication on the reader. > > > it be 12/08/03? What's so confusing a bout 12/8? Anyone reading > > > that as the eightieth of December? If not, why else have that zero > > > in there? > > > > As some people already pointed out, most people would read that as the > > 12th of August. > > "Most people" in a global sense - but the American convention (as you're > surely aware) is to put the month first. Yes. Why does this need pointing out? > Brits do it the other way; other people, I don't know. I think folks in the USA are flying totally solo (um, collectively) on that date interpretation. > Yeah, it would make sense to move from larger to smaller units - and > it's acceptable in most contexts to do the reverse, and write "10 > December 2003" - but again, language isn't logical. Well, I ain't sayin' it totally fails to communicate, I'm sayin' that it's BETTER. > > "December 7 2003" because they make no sense. > > The test of that is how many people are confused by what date that would > indicate. I'd guess that would be a near-zero number. Right, but since it's NOT the most logical way to arrange a date (and equivalent to "2003 7 December" in its lack of consideration for precedence), the reader would assume that this method of conveying date, while totally comprehensible in the most literal meaning, was chosen for a reason OTHER than conveying just that literal meaning. If someone uses an awkward or illogical construction, it is either out of ignorance, idiom, or intention. Perhaps the person didn't know how to express the thing properly. Fine. They're an ignoramus and we can teach them. Perhaps it's just the way something is generally expressed or dialectically expressed. Fine there, too... but this bleeds out in both directions because you have to ask why that idiom was chosen. If the idiom is one of the primary ways the culture expresses the idea, then it's not an awkward or illogical construction, it's just exceptional to some grammatical rule. This happens. If it's not the way the thing is NORMALLY expressed, then the idiom was chosen to imply a certain context or interpretation of the literal meaning. (For example, if I write that me and my honey was knockin' boots last night, then I'm going for some contextual humor... perhaps to remove the discomfort that comes with too much personal candor or something. There's a reason for using the strange construction.) And that flows neatly into the third reason for such a construction. Most of the time, you're trying to convey something that the logical construction just doesn't carry. Someone earlier in this thread wrote that a person might use the cardinal number when speaking a date if they were "trying to sound like they were in the military". OK. So the awkward or illogical or uncommon method of expressing the date as "seven December" does convey a meaning outside the literal date and it makes sense to use it that way when you want to convey that meaning to people who would take it that way. So, when the reader sees something that is weird and illogical, they're immediately going to look for a reason for using that expression in that way in that context. If you really mean nothing other than the literal date, then you should use the most logical construction of that date. No sense in stealing your readers' slack. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 21:44:03 -0500 From: Johnathan Vail Subject: Re: looking for jobs Did anyone mention Pig Worker yet? jv <- On topic thread posts since 1987 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:44:40 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Regional conflicts On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Capuchin wrote: > But I really don't see why you took the earlier part as injurious at > all. I got caught up in this reply and had to grab something in the kitchen... Anyway, I sent it without including the most important part which is, of course, that I'm sorry if anyone took offense and I certainly didn't mean anything harsh by it (except the aforementioned tiny joke). Apologies. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 21:12:27 -0600 From: steve Subject: Re: looking for jobs > ross taylor wrote: >> Earn Enough for Life -- XTC On Dec 10, 2003, at 2:29 PM, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > Or even for _US_ ;) > > XTC also have: Making Plans for Nigel; Love on a > Farmboy's Wages; Paper and Iron Plus Leisure, Andy's demo Work, and Day In, Day Out. - - Steve __________ - the line waiting for the opening of the Ginza Apple Store. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 21:50:21 -0600 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: Regional conflicts On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:42:36 -0800 (PST), "Capuchin" said: > On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Fortissimo wrote: > > You kn bi laik Dzhordzh B. Shau and spel evrythyng fnetykli, but yr wrdz > > wyl bi mch hardr for pipl t rid. > > First, do you really talk like this? Seems there are lots of missing > syllables and the pronunciations are really strange (rid?). > > The greatest problem with this approach is that it introduces into the > written word MORE of the problems associated with the spoken word and > removes standards (namely, spelling) that can help us communicate when > things like accent and dialect get too disparate. > > It took me a while to puzzle out what you wrote above because I clearly > don't talk like you do. It's false laziness to put that much of the > effort of communication on the reader. Thank you for (at some points, inadvertently) illustrating several of the major flaws underlying spelling "reform." I do talk like that - sort of - but only if you translate the same phonetic system I was using. In other words, I was internally consistent, but that internal consistency does not necessarily translate to external consistency ("i" = long e; "y" = short i, sort of; missing vowel = schwa; "ai" = long i (diphthong - actually I should have written it "ay" esp. in "like," which is a different vowel sound than in, say, "buy"); "dzh" = "j." Note also there's no indicator of which syllables are accented - something standard English spelling often *does* indicate: that is, part of the complex regularity that emerges from the apparent irregularity of English orthography are features that indicate syllabic accent. Some advantages of a standard orthography are that it works irrespective of dialect, analogous to the way non-phonetic characters can work between languages; that it favors no particular dialect (even if it once did); and that once learned, it puts no particular pressure on reader to know the writer's quirks of pronunciation (as if, say, one were transcribing, phonetically, a W.C. Fields monologue). > If someone uses an awkward or illogical construction, it is either out of > ignorance, idiom, or intention. Perhaps the person didn't know how to > express the thing properly. Fine. They're an ignoramus and we can teach > them. > > Perhaps it's just the way something is generally expressed or > dialectically expressed. Fine there, too... but this bleeds out in both > directions because you have to ask why that idiom was chosen. If the > idiom is one of the primary ways the culture expresses the idea, then > it's > not an awkward or illogical construction, it's just exceptional to some > grammatical rule. I don't think "December 7, 2003" is an exception to any grammatical rule - - if only because the order of elements isn't a question of grammar but of idiom (as you note). That is, writing "December 7" shouldn't be notable at all - since it is (at least in the US) a standard way of designating the date. (Note that I'm talking about writing, not pronunciation - lest we raise the recently interred corpse of "December seven" again.) > So, when the reader sees something that is weird and illogical, they're > immediately going to look for a reason for using that expression in that > way in that context. If you really mean nothing other than the literal > date, then you should use the most logical construction of that date. You assume that "weird" and "illogical" march hand in hand; in fact, the form "December 7, 2003" is not weird, even though it's illogical. Your last sentence conflates into one term ("logical") the two terms that your first sentence is discussing. I'd've written that last sentence as "If you really mean nothing other than the literal date, then you should use the most common construction of that date." Commonness, or standardization, trumps logic in determining the most transparent language usage. I'd be very surprised if anyone actually reads this sentence... ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: crumple zones:: :: harmful or fatal if swallowed :: :: small-craft warning :: ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #458 ********************************