32 GB memory stick

[Ed Cryer]

On 14/11/2011 12:17, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 11:56, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 09:28, John M Ward wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:39 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message<[email protected]>, John M Ward
[]
I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's
country
of origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard
to say which is better or whether one is right and the other
wrong.

I'm in England too, but we shouldn't be smug: just because it came
from here, no reason to assume pronunciation - or grammar, or
anything else - has remained unchanged here but changed in USA,
rather than vice versa! (Compare "gotten".)

[I tend to think our "root" pronunciation is correct as it matches
the French which I think is the origin. BICBW.]

The pronunciation of "route" is discussed from time to time in
alt.usage.english. Both the "oo" and "ow" pronunciations are used
for
"route" in the US.

Yes, I've noticed that, and with the letter zed (or zee).

I think it was the last time we discussed it there that I had just
watched an American movie on TV and had noticed in a scene in which
two characters were discussing how to get somewhere that one used
the
"ow" sound and the other the "oo".

I've spotted this too, including in Stargate Atlantis where UK-born
actor David Hewlett plays a Canadian: apparently the Canadians have
pronunciations more like ours than the USians so this was a kind of
get-out for Dr McKay's "Zep Pee Em" (Zero Point Module).

Since you two have gone way off the subject, how about changing it yet
again and going into the definition of the words "eroticism" and
"pornography" and the merits and/or demerits of both.

Is or rather was Anais Nin a writer of erotography or pornography?

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the apostrophe
is there to indicate a contraction of the full expression? They didn't
teach me either but I just added two and two together to arrive at the
following logical conclusion.

Let's see... "It's" is the shortened version of "It is" or "It has" or
some such other expression and "didn't" is a shortened version of "did
not", while in, for example, "The boy's thingie" is a contraction for
"The thingie of the boy"... ;-)

But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get it?!

Though I never saw this subject explained so succinctly and so clearly
in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher
who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language
is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No, unfortunately I am
not that Dutchman. Not even Dutch!

Oh, I never told you that in my younger days I was a teacher of
English
as a foreign language to teenagers for a couple of years until I
gave up
teaching over poor pay. That was over half a century ago, but what
is it
they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

And once the boys and girls I used to teach got this concept of the
apostrophe being there to stand for an abbreviation, they didn't make
any such stupid mistakes any more.
-- choro


If only it were that simple and straight-forward!! But it isn't.
Look at the apostrophies in these two sentences;
It's the boy's book.
It isn't the boys' book.

You'll see where an apostrophy doesn't signify a contraction but a
possessive genitive derived from Germanic genitive case.

Ed's very own contribution to "its" and "it's".

You are right, you b****rd! ;-)

I knew I had boo-booed somewhere! But still what did I say?...

"But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get it?!"

I am talking only about "Its" here and in your example the word "boy/s"
(not Its or Their) in "The boy's thingie..." and "The boys' thingie..."
fall outside this *"Its Caveat"*!

And besides using such terms as "possessive genitive" only confuses the
average person or student. Keep it simple, as says my old classmate who
has made a billion! Why complicate things?

Do you have to understand the laws of chemistry to fry an egg or indeed
to boil one?

Ah, but boiling an egg is an art in itself!!! Or do you want to approach
the problem through understanding exactly what happens when you boil an
egg? Just boil the bloody thing!

I remember my ex jumping into the garden when she tried frying an egg
for the very first time for me! Apparently she used to get the oil so
hot that the egg spluttered wildly when she broke it into the frying
pan! Stupid bitch!
-- choro

No no, you shouldn't investigate things too deeply. It drives some nuts
and it brings little benefit to humanity. We should all go back to an
agrarian economy, believe in a flat earth and the geocentric map of the
solar system. We certainly shouldn't go running through the streets of a
city in the nude crying "Eureka" like Archimedes.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Draco dormiens non est titillandus.

Some nutters even discuss the plural of acronyms; whether they should
have an apostrophe or not.
Is it "CDs" or "CD's"?
I think these plagues of the earth should be hanged, drawn and
quartered, as was William Wallace for trying to liberate them there
Celtic Scots.

Ed the stepping-stone (Nemo me impune lacessit)

Well said. But the plural of CD is surely CDs and not CD's. ;-)

I try to stick to this rule wherever possible but one day I was dealing
with another acronym and felt that I had no option but to use the damned
apostrophe! I'll be damned if I can now recall which acronym it was.

Such is life! I am right at this moment listening to and partly watching
the New Year Day's Concert of 1989 with the VPO under Carlos Kleiber! An
unbeatable combination. Absolutely *bootiful*; all 1 hour and 42 minutes
of it, courtesy of some nutter who has got nothing better to do than to
make available the video of the full concert on YouTube! Bloody good
sound as well as fairly good cinematic definition, actually.
-- choro

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Ed

 

[Mack A. Damia]

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Well said!

I can only find the first and third movements of this recording. Do
you have any knowledge of the other movements on YouTube?

 

[Ed Cryer]

Well said!

I can only find the first and third movements of this recording. Do
you have any knowledge of the other movements on YouTube?

Try these;

Ed

 

[choro]

On 14/11/2011 15:39, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 12:17, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 11:56, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 09:28, John M Ward wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:39 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message<[email protected]>, John M Ward
[]
I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's
country
of origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard
to say which is better or whether one is right and the other
wrong.

I'm in England too, but we shouldn't be smug: just because it came
from here, no reason to assume pronunciation - or grammar, or
anything else - has remained unchanged here but changed in USA,
rather than vice versa! (Compare "gotten".)

[I tend to think our "root" pronunciation is correct as it matches
the French which I think is the origin. BICBW.]

The pronunciation of "route" is discussed from time to time in
alt.usage.english. Both the "oo" and "ow" pronunciations are used
for
"route" in the US.

Yes, I've noticed that, and with the letter zed (or zee).

I think it was the last time we discussed it there that I had just
watched an American movie on TV and had noticed in a scene in which
two characters were discussing how to get somewhere that one used
the
"ow" sound and the other the "oo".

I've spotted this too, including in Stargate Atlantis where UK-born
actor David Hewlett plays a Canadian: apparently the Canadians have
pronunciations more like ours than the USians so this was a kind of
get-out for Dr McKay's "Zep Pee Em" (Zero Point Module).

Since you two have gone way off the subject, how about changing it
yet
again and going into the definition of the words "eroticism" and
"pornography" and the merits and/or demerits of both.

Is or rather was Anais Nin a writer of erotography or pornography?

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the
apostrophe
is there to indicate a contraction of the full expression? They
didn't
teach me either but I just added two and two together to arrive at
the
following logical conclusion.

Let's see... "It's" is the shortened version of "It is" or "It
has" or
some such other expression and "didn't" is a shortened version of
"did
not", while in, for example, "The boy's thingie" is a contraction for
"The thingie of the boy"... ;-)

But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the
set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!

Though I never saw this subject explained so succinctly and so
clearly
in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher
who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language
is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No, unfortunately I am
not that Dutchman. Not even Dutch!

Oh, I never told you that in my younger days I was a teacher of
English
as a foreign language to teenagers for a couple of years until I
gave up
teaching over poor pay. That was over half a century ago, but what
is it
they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

And once the boys and girls I used to teach got this concept of the
apostrophe being there to stand for an abbreviation, they didn't make
any such stupid mistakes any more.
-- choro


If only it were that simple and straight-forward!! But it isn't.
Look at the apostrophies in these two sentences;
It's the boy's book.
It isn't the boys' book.

You'll see where an apostrophy doesn't signify a contraction but a
possessive genitive derived from Germanic genitive case.

Ed's very own contribution to "its" and "it's".

You are right, you b****rd! ;-)

I knew I had boo-booed somewhere! But still what did I say?...

"But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get it?!"

I am talking only about "Its" here and in your example the word "boy/s"
(not Its or Their) in "The boy's thingie..." and "The boys' thingie..."
fall outside this *"Its Caveat"*!

And besides using such terms as "possessive genitive" only confuses the
average person or student. Keep it simple, as says my old classmate who
has made a billion! Why complicate things?

Do you have to understand the laws of chemistry to fry an egg or indeed
to boil one?

Ah, but boiling an egg is an art in itself!!! Or do you want to
approach
the problem through understanding exactly what happens when you boil an
egg? Just boil the bloody thing!

I remember my ex jumping into the garden when she tried frying an egg
for the very first time for me! Apparently she used to get the oil so
hot that the egg spluttered wildly when she broke it into the frying
pan! Stupid bitch!
-- choro

No no, you shouldn't investigate things too deeply. It drives some nuts
and it brings little benefit to humanity. We should all go back to an
agrarian economy, believe in a flat earth and the geocentric map of the
solar system. We certainly shouldn't go running through the streets of a
city in the nude crying "Eureka" like Archimedes.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Draco dormiens non est titillandus.

Some nutters even discuss the plural of acronyms; whether they should
have an apostrophe or not.
Is it "CDs" or "CD's"?
I think these plagues of the earth should be hanged, drawn and
quartered, as was William Wallace for trying to liberate them there
Celtic Scots.

Ed the stepping-stone (Nemo me impune lacessit)

Well said. But the plural of CD is surely CDs and not CD's. ;-)

I try to stick to this rule wherever possible but one day I was dealing
with another acronym and felt that I had no option but to use the damned
apostrophe! I'll be damned if I can now recall which acronym it was.

Such is life! I am right at this moment listening to and partly watching
the New Year Day's Concert of 1989 with the VPO under Carlos Kleiber! An
unbeatable combination. Absolutely *bootiful*; all 1 hour and 42 minutes
of it, courtesy of some nutter who has got nothing better to do than to
make available the video of the full concert on YouTube! Bloody good
sound as well as fairly good cinematic definition, actually.
-- choro

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Ed

You are right again both about the staggering amount of material on
YouTube as well about people wanting to share with other like-minded
people the things that give them joy. For we get the greatest joy in
life by giving and by sharing. I'll never forget the joy I got when I
gave a girl I know a watch I had foolishly bought on eBay. I didn't need
a watch, in any case. It was a nice two tone unisex watch and at first
she didn't want to accept it. But I could see that she liked it and I'll
never forget the joy in her eyes when she finally decided to accept it
as a no strings attached present from me. I could understand why at
first she did not want to accept it considering the yawning age gap
between us, and the fact that I had given her nice presents before. We
were both aware of the attraction between us and I guess she wanted to
keep some distance due to the age gap between us, which is perfectly
understandable. But seeing the joy in her eyes when she finally accepted
it when I stressed that it was a no strings attached present, made my
day. I was over the moon with the joy of giving, or sharing. We have
been good friends for several years now and our relationship is going to
remain like that.

And that recording of Beethoven's 5th that you mention is probably the
very best rendition of that oeuvre ever. I first listened to that CD
years ago when it came to my notice at the local library. Listening to
it on some decent speakers at home was an eye (and ear) opener for me.
Mind you, the VPO is definitely one of the finest, if not the finest,
orchestras in the world. And under a conductor like Carlos Kleiber they
are simply out of this world.
-- choro

 

[Allen]

[huge snip]

I realized that I forgot to say explicitly that I am in the USA, so:

I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's country of
origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard to say
which is better or whether one is right and the other wrong.

In fact, it varies within the US. I say root because I lived for a long
time in parts of the eastern US that say it that way. Sometimes I say
rowt because now I live in a different dialect area

You should be thankful you don't live in the UK.
I once called in a shop in Newcastle (Geordie-land) for a packet of
cigarettes, paid the bloke, got the change and was turning to go out
when he suddenly said to me "Ta bin reet doont dere lad".
I checked my change and cigarettes, looked him in the face, nothing
more, so I went out. And to this day I have no idea what he was trying
to tell me.

Ed

Ah, the gulf of the common language.
Allen

 

[Ed Cryer]

On 14/11/2011 19:21, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 15:39, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 12:17, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 11:56, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 09:28, John M Ward wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:39 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message<[email protected]>, John M Ward
[]
I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's
country
of origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is
hard
to say which is better or whether one is right and the other
wrong.

I'm in England too, but we shouldn't be smug: just because it
came
from here, no reason to assume pronunciation - or grammar, or
anything else - has remained unchanged here but changed in USA,
rather than vice versa! (Compare "gotten".)

[I tend to think our "root" pronunciation is correct as it
matches
the French which I think is the origin. BICBW.]

The pronunciation of "route" is discussed from time to time in
alt.usage.english. Both the "oo" and "ow" pronunciations are used
for
"route" in the US.

Yes, I've noticed that, and with the letter zed (or zee).

I think it was the last time we discussed it there that I had just
watched an American movie on TV and had noticed in a scene in
which
two characters were discussing how to get somewhere that one used
the
"ow" sound and the other the "oo".

I've spotted this too, including in Stargate Atlantis where UK-born
actor David Hewlett plays a Canadian: apparently the Canadians have
pronunciations more like ours than the USians so this was a kind of
get-out for Dr McKay's "Zep Pee Em" (Zero Point Module).

Since you two have gone way off the subject, how about changing it
yet
again and going into the definition of the words "eroticism" and
"pornography" and the merits and/or demerits of both.

Is or rather was Anais Nin a writer of erotography or pornography?

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the
apostrophe
is there to indicate a contraction of the full expression? They
didn't
teach me either but I just added two and two together to arrive at
the
following logical conclusion.

Let's see... "It's" is the shortened version of "It is" or "It
has" or
some such other expression and "didn't" is a shortened version of
"did
not", while in, for example, "The boy's thingie" is a contraction
for
"The thingie of the boy"... ;-)

But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the
set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!

Though I never saw this subject explained so succinctly and so
clearly
in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher
who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language
is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No, unfortunately
I am
not that Dutchman. Not even Dutch!

Oh, I never told you that in my younger days I was a teacher of
English
as a foreign language to teenagers for a couple of years until I
gave up
teaching over poor pay. That was over half a century ago, but what
is it
they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

And once the boys and girls I used to teach got this concept of the
apostrophe being there to stand for an abbreviation, they didn't
make
any such stupid mistakes any more.
-- choro


If only it were that simple and straight-forward!! But it isn't.
Look at the apostrophies in these two sentences;
It's the boy's book.
It isn't the boys' book.

You'll see where an apostrophy doesn't signify a contraction but a
possessive genitive derived from Germanic genitive case.

Ed's very own contribution to "its" and "it's".

You are right, you b****rd! ;-)

I knew I had boo-booed somewhere! But still what did I say?...

"But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!"

I am talking only about "Its" here and in your example the word
"boy/s"
(not Its or Their) in "The boy's thingie..." and "The boys'
thingie..."
fall outside this *"Its Caveat"*!

And besides using such terms as "possessive genitive" only confuses
the
average person or student. Keep it simple, as says my old classmate
who
has made a billion! Why complicate things?

Do you have to understand the laws of chemistry to fry an egg or
indeed
to boil one?

Ah, but boiling an egg is an art in itself!!! Or do you want to
approach
the problem through understanding exactly what happens when you
boil an
egg? Just boil the bloody thing!

I remember my ex jumping into the garden when she tried frying an egg
for the very first time for me! Apparently she used to get the oil so
hot that the egg spluttered wildly when she broke it into the frying
pan! Stupid bitch!
-- choro

No no, you shouldn't investigate things too deeply. It drives some nuts
and it brings little benefit to humanity. We should all go back to an
agrarian economy, believe in a flat earth and the geocentric map of the
solar system. We certainly shouldn't go running through the streets
of a
city in the nude crying "Eureka" like Archimedes.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Draco dormiens non est titillandus.

Some nutters even discuss the plural of acronyms; whether they should
have an apostrophe or not.
Is it "CDs" or "CD's"?
I think these plagues of the earth should be hanged, drawn and
quartered, as was William Wallace for trying to liberate them there
Celtic Scots.

Ed the stepping-stone (Nemo me impune lacessit)

Well said. But the plural of CD is surely CDs and not CD's. ;-)

I try to stick to this rule wherever possible but one day I was dealing
with another acronym and felt that I had no option but to use the damned
apostrophe! I'll be damned if I can now recall which acronym it was.

Such is life! I am right at this moment listening to and partly watching
the New Year Day's Concert of 1989 with the VPO under Carlos Kleiber! An
unbeatable combination. Absolutely *bootiful*; all 1 hour and 42 minutes
of it, courtesy of some nutter who has got nothing better to do than to
make available the video of the full concert on YouTube! Bloody good
sound as well as fairly good cinematic definition, actually.
-- choro

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Ed

You are right again both about the staggering amount of material on
YouTube as well about people wanting to share with other like-minded
people the things that give them joy. For we get the greatest joy in
life by giving and by sharing. I'll never forget the joy I got when I
gave a girl I know a watch I had foolishly bought on eBay. I didn't need
a watch, in any case. It was a nice two tone unisex watch and at first
she didn't want to accept it. But I could see that she liked it and I'll
never forget the joy in her eyes when she finally decided to accept it
as a no strings attached present from me. I could understand why at
first she did not want to accept it considering the yawning age gap
between us, and the fact that I had given her nice presents before. We
were both aware of the attraction between us and I guess she wanted to
keep some distance due to the age gap between us, which is perfectly
understandable. But seeing the joy in her eyes when she finally accepted
it when I stressed that it was a no strings attached present, made my
day. I was over the moon with the joy of giving, or sharing. We have
been good friends for several years now and our relationship is going to
remain like that.

And that recording of Beethoven's 5th that you mention is probably the
very best rendition of that oeuvre ever. I first listened to that CD
years ago when it came to my notice at the local library. Listening to
it on some decent speakers at home was an eye (and ear) opener for me.
Mind you, the VPO is definitely one of the finest, if not the finest,
orchestras in the world. And under a conductor like Carlos Kleiber they
are simply out of this world.
-- choro

You've managed to incorporate a lot of self-interest in that analysis of
a moral action.
Personally I go along with it. I tend to suspect claims of disinterested
altruism these days. We live in a pretty cynical world, and anybody
affirming some higher cause such as "humanity" or "God" soon falls under
distrust. We've all become like Diogenes with his lamp in old Athens,
walking around in broad daylight with a lit lamp and explaining that he
was searching for just one honest man.

During the Credit Crunch a few years back I heard a very well respected
business reporter on the BBC state quite bluntly that "the markets are
morally neutral". That hit me like a ton of bricks, because whenever I
pictured all those speculator bankers sitting in front of their computer
screens and grabbing the right split second to shift millions of dollars
from one hard drive to another, I imagined a thinking mind inside the
brain. But no! The markets are morally neutral and all those bankers
suspend their (no doubt) very moral and thinking-ahead minds in order to
make a fast buck; never thinking for one second that they might be
turfing some poor soul out of their house, or depriving them of a
retirement pension.

The markets are morally neutral and nobody gives a damn for the greater
good.

There was a time when Mother Church was a power in the land; and the
peasants labouring in the fields for their feudal lords did so under the
protective overlordship of monks and nuns praying for their souls and
future life in the beyond. As they walked to the fields the matin bells
would chime out, and as they went home the vespers would ring; and if
you approached the abbey walls you'd hear Gregorian chanting as the
choirs appealed to God to safeguard the poor peasantry.
There was a time when the most famous and moral man in Christendom lived
atop a pillar that he'd built on the edge of the desert, and he spent
years up there bowing to the east and sometimes standing on one leg for
years, in devotion to his Saviour. And tourists would flock to see him.
But then came the revolt of the Enlightenment. Freedom and the pursuit
of happiness. And "rights". Each individual his own kingdom.
And now here we are at another cross-roads, where we've followed the
path of enlightened self-interest to its end. How will the world react?

Ed

 

[Mack A. Damia]

Try these;

Thanks very much!

When I was nine years old, a school principal gave me a huge stack of
old 78s in jackets within folders. They were all classical, and I
would spend hours playing them on a cheap record player (stereo wasn't
out then) and I wore down many needles listening to them. Beethoven's
5th was one of my favorites; I seem to recall it was eight 78 rpm
disks.

My favorite, though was and always has been Bach's Concerto in D Minor
for Two Violins.

 

[Mack A. Damia]

On 14/11/2011 19:21, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 15:39, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 12:17, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 11:56, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 09:28, John M Ward wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:39 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message<[email protected]>, John M Ward
[]
I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's
country
of origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard
to say which is better or whether one is right and the other
wrong.

I'm in England too, but we shouldn't be smug: just because it came
from here, no reason to assume pronunciation - or grammar, or
anything else - has remained unchanged here but changed in USA,
rather than vice versa! (Compare "gotten".)

[I tend to think our "root" pronunciation is correct as it matches
the French which I think is the origin. BICBW.]

The pronunciation of "route" is discussed from time to time in
alt.usage.english. Both the "oo" and "ow" pronunciations are used
for
"route" in the US.

Yes, I've noticed that, and with the letter zed (or zee).

I think it was the last time we discussed it there that I had just
watched an American movie on TV and had noticed in a scene in which
two characters were discussing how to get somewhere that one used
the
"ow" sound and the other the "oo".

I've spotted this too, including in Stargate Atlantis where UK-born
actor David Hewlett plays a Canadian: apparently the Canadians have
pronunciations more like ours than the USians so this was a kind of
get-out for Dr McKay's "Zep Pee Em" (Zero Point Module).

Since you two have gone way off the subject, how about changing it
yet
again and going into the definition of the words "eroticism" and
"pornography" and the merits and/or demerits of both.

Is or rather was Anais Nin a writer of erotography or pornography?

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the
apostrophe
is there to indicate a contraction of the full expression? They
didn't
teach me either but I just added two and two together to arrive at
the
following logical conclusion.

Let's see... "It's" is the shortened version of "It is" or "It
has" or
some such other expression and "didn't" is a shortened version of
"did
not", while in, for example, "The boy's thingie" is a contraction for
"The thingie of the boy"... ;-)

But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the
set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!

Though I never saw this subject explained so succinctly and so
clearly
in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher
who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language
is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No, unfortunately I am
not that Dutchman. Not even Dutch!

Oh, I never told you that in my younger days I was a teacher of
English
as a foreign language to teenagers for a couple of years until I
gave up
teaching over poor pay. That was over half a century ago, but what
is it
they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

And once the boys and girls I used to teach got this concept of the
apostrophe being there to stand for an abbreviation, they didn't make
any such stupid mistakes any more.
-- choro


If only it were that simple and straight-forward!! But it isn't.
Look at the apostrophies in these two sentences;
It's the boy's book.
It isn't the boys' book.

You'll see where an apostrophy doesn't signify a contraction but a
possessive genitive derived from Germanic genitive case.

Ed's very own contribution to "its" and "it's".

You are right, you b****rd! ;-)

I knew I had boo-booed somewhere! But still what did I say?...

"But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get it?!"

I am talking only about "Its" here and in your example the word "boy/s"
(not Its or Their) in "The boy's thingie..." and "The boys' thingie..."
fall outside this *"Its Caveat"*!

And besides using such terms as "possessive genitive" only confuses the
average person or student. Keep it simple, as says my old classmate who
has made a billion! Why complicate things?

Do you have to understand the laws of chemistry to fry an egg or indeed
to boil one?

Ah, but boiling an egg is an art in itself!!! Or do you want to
approach
the problem through understanding exactly what happens when you boil an
egg? Just boil the bloody thing!

I remember my ex jumping into the garden when she tried frying an egg
for the very first time for me! Apparently she used to get the oil so
hot that the egg spluttered wildly when she broke it into the frying
pan! Stupid bitch!
-- choro

No no, you shouldn't investigate things too deeply. It drives some nuts
and it brings little benefit to humanity. We should all go back to an
agrarian economy, believe in a flat earth and the geocentric map of the
solar system. We certainly shouldn't go running through the streets of a
city in the nude crying "Eureka" like Archimedes.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Draco dormiens non est titillandus.

Some nutters even discuss the plural of acronyms; whether they should
have an apostrophe or not.
Is it "CDs" or "CD's"?
I think these plagues of the earth should be hanged, drawn and
quartered, as was William Wallace for trying to liberate them there
Celtic Scots.

Ed the stepping-stone (Nemo me impune lacessit)

Well said. But the plural of CD is surely CDs and not CD's. ;-)

I try to stick to this rule wherever possible but one day I was dealing
with another acronym and felt that I had no option but to use the damned
apostrophe! I'll be damned if I can now recall which acronym it was.

Such is life! I am right at this moment listening to and partly watching
the New Year Day's Concert of 1989 with the VPO under Carlos Kleiber! An
unbeatable combination. Absolutely *bootiful*; all 1 hour and 42 minutes
of it, courtesy of some nutter who has got nothing better to do than to
make available the video of the full concert on YouTube! Bloody good
sound as well as fairly good cinematic definition, actually.
-- choro

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Ed

You are right again both about the staggering amount of material on
YouTube as well about people wanting to share with other like-minded
people the things that give them joy. For we get the greatest joy in
life by giving and by sharing. I'll never forget the joy I got when I
gave a girl I know a watch I had foolishly bought on eBay. I didn't need
a watch, in any case. It was a nice two tone unisex watch and at first
she didn't want to accept it. But I could see that she liked it and I'll
never forget the joy in her eyes when she finally decided to accept it
as a no strings attached present from me. I could understand why at
first she did not want to accept it considering the yawning age gap
between us, and the fact that I had given her nice presents before. We
were both aware of the attraction between us and I guess she wanted to
keep some distance due to the age gap between us, which is perfectly
understandable. But seeing the joy in her eyes when she finally accepted
it when I stressed that it was a no strings attached present, made my
day. I was over the moon with the joy of giving, or sharing. We have
been good friends for several years now and our relationship is going to
remain like that.

And that recording of Beethoven's 5th that you mention is probably the
very best rendition of that oeuvre ever. I first listened to that CD
years ago when it came to my notice at the local library. Listening to
it on some decent speakers at home was an eye (and ear) opener for me.
Mind you, the VPO is definitely one of the finest, if not the finest,
orchestras in the world. And under a conductor like Carlos Kleiber they
are simply out of this world.
-- choro

I do have to say, though, that I think it takes an extremely
well-tuned ear to hear the subtle differences among the greats.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

[huge snip]

I realized that I forgot to say explicitly that I am in the USA, so:

I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's country of
origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard to say
which is better or whether one is right and the other wrong.

In fact, it varies within the US. I say root because I lived for a long
time in parts of the eastern US that say it that way. Sometimes I say
rowt because now I live in a different dialect area

You should be thankful you don't live in the UK.
I once called in a shop in Newcastle (Geordie-land) for a packet of
cigarettes, paid the bloke, got the change and was turning to go out
when he suddenly said to me "Ta bin reet doont dere lad".
I checked my change and cigarettes, looked him in the face, nothing
more, so I went out. And to this day I have no idea what he was trying
to tell me.

Ed

I've had similar, if milder, problems here. There are a few odd
expressions or pronunciations that can throw me. Although it's clear to
me that the clerk (clurk here) was saying "Ta bin reet doont dere lad"


One example - in the early 60s I lived in Cambridge - the wrong one, in
your terms

I dated someone from California who just could not understand the black
people there. They (really, just some of them) had an accent that she
just couldn't fathom, but since I grew up in the eastern US, I had lots
of experience with that accent and no trouble understanding it, and I
served as her translator. Until she came along, I wasn't really aware of
a problem...

Naturally, I assume most people in Newcastle could understand that
clerk.

 

[Mack A. Damia]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:15:50 +0000 (GMT), John M Ward wrote:

[huge snip]

I realized that I forgot to say explicitly that I am in the USA, so:

I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's country of
origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard to say
which is better or whether one is right and the other wrong.

In fact, it varies within the US. I say root because I lived for a long
time in parts of the eastern US that say it that way. Sometimes I say
rowt because now I live in a different dialect area

You should be thankful you don't live in the UK.
I once called in a shop in Newcastle (Geordie-land) for a packet of
cigarettes, paid the bloke, got the change and was turning to go out
when he suddenly said to me "Ta bin reet doont dere lad".
I checked my change and cigarettes, looked him in the face, nothing
more, so I went out. And to this day I have no idea what he was trying
to tell me.

Ed

I've had similar, if milder, problems here. There are a few odd
expressions or pronunciations that can throw me. Although it's clear to
me that the clerk (clurk here) was saying "Ta bin reet doont dere lad"


One example - in the early 60s I lived in Cambridge - the wrong one, in
your terms

I dated someone from California who just could not understand the black
people there. They (really, just some of them) had an accent that she
just couldn't fathom, but since I grew up in the eastern US, I had lots
of experience with that accent and no trouble understanding it, and I
served as her translator. Until she came along, I wasn't really aware of
a problem...

Naturally, I assume most people in Newcastle could understand that
clerk.

Are you familiar with the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect? I knew a guy
who worked for the PA. Dep't of Revenue, and I had occasion to visit
his office on many occasions.

I once saw him at a popular Italian-American club in Reading, PA,
called Victor Emmanuel's - or "Victor's".

I ran into this guy in a mall, I think, some time later, and he said
to me "Bin to Wictas lately?" I kept asking, "Wicktas?"....Wicktas?"

He would say, "Ya, Wicktas."

It took me a few minutes and a few questions to realize he was asking
me, "Been to Victor's lately?".

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On 15/11/2011 01:14, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:15:50 +0000 (GMT), John M Ward wrote:

[huge snip]

I realized that I forgot to say explicitly that I am in the USA, so:

I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's country of
origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard to say
which is better or whether one is right and the other wrong.

In fact, it varies within the US. I say root because I lived for a long
time in parts of the eastern US that say it that way. Sometimes I say
rowt because now I live in a different dialect area


You should be thankful you don't live in the UK.
I once called in a shop in Newcastle (Geordie-land) for a packet of
cigarettes, paid the bloke, got the change and was turning to go out
when he suddenly said to me "Ta bin reet doont dere lad".
I checked my change and cigarettes, looked him in the face, nothing
more, so I went out. And to this day I have no idea what he was trying
to tell me.

Ed

I've had similar, if milder, problems here. There are a few odd
expressions or pronunciations that can throw me. Although it's clear to
me that the clerk (clurk here) was saying "Ta bin reet doont dere lad"


One example - in the early 60s I lived in Cambridge - the wrong one, in
your terms

I dated someone from California who just could not understand the black
people there. They (really, just some of them) had an accent that she
just couldn't fathom, but since I grew up in the eastern US, I had lots
of experience with that accent and no trouble understanding it, and I
served as her translator. Until she came along, I wasn't really aware of
a problem...

Naturally, I assume most people in Newcastle could understand that
clerk.

Are you familiar with the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect? I knew a guy
who worked for the PA. Dep't of Revenue, and I had occasion to visit
his office on many occasions.

I once saw him at a popular Italian-American club in Reading, PA,
called Victor Emmanuel's - or "Victor's".

I ran into this guy in a mall, I think, some time later, and he said
to me "Bin to Wictas lately?" I kept asking, "Wicktas?"....Wicktas?"

He would say, "Ya, Wicktas."

It took me a few minutes and a few questions to realize he was asking
me, "Been to Victor's lately?".

So you were finally wictorious?

But no, although I am a native of Pennsylvania, I haven't experience
that accent. Also nevah been to Wictas. I also managed to put some
evidence of my time in Massachusetts in that sentence

 

[Char Jackson]

Are you familiar with the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect? I knew a guy
who worked for the PA. Dep't of Revenue, and I had occasion to visit
his office on many occasions.

I once saw him at a popular Italian-American club in Reading, PA,
called Victor Emmanuel's - or "Victor's".

I ran into this guy in a mall, I think, some time later, and he said
to me "Bin to Wictas lately?" I kept asking, "Wicktas?"....Wicktas?"

He would say, "Ya, Wicktas."

It took me a few minutes and a few questions to realize he was asking
me, "Been to Victor's lately?".

I grew up in a home where German was spoken on a regular basis,
especially by the adults, not to mention the years I spent in Germany
while I was in the military, so something like "Wicktas" would have
been immediately recognizable to me.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

What's this Zet? I say zed ... (-:

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

That was me: I thought the denizens of APIHNA would enjoy how the thread
had drifted.

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the apostrophe

Actually, APIHNA considers most aspects of English usage (for example
the tautology in how some abbreviations are used - what we call PNS
syndrome, where PN stands for PIN number). It's a sort of variant of
alt.usage.english and alt.english.usage, without the flames and much
more friendly (and low traffic).
[]

in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No,

Hmm. Some would disagree. But who is the person you have in mind,
anyway?
[]

is it they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

(Or in my case, parents are teachers, ... though I don't know if that's
the reason I'm pedagogic.)
[]

PS. Please direct your responses to the
"alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe" group and let's (abbreviated in
lieu of "let us"!) leave the "alt.windows7.general" group to
discussions more relevant to Windows 7 issues.

You didn't (-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If you like making stuff there's always somebody ready to say that its
ridiculous. But, actually, I don't think it is. In fact, enthusiasms are good.
Hobbies are healthy. They don't harm anybody. - James May in RT, 6-12
November 2010.

 

[choro]

On 14/11/2011 23:09, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 19:21, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 15:39, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 12:17, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 11:56, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 09:28, John M Ward wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:39 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message<[email protected]>, John M Ward
[]
I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's
country
of origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard
to say which is better or whether one is right and the other
wrong.

I'm in England too, but we shouldn't be smug: just because it came
from here, no reason to assume pronunciation - or grammar, or
anything else - has remained unchanged here but changed in USA,
rather than vice versa! (Compare "gotten".)

[I tend to think our "root" pronunciation is correct as it matches
the French which I think is the origin. BICBW.]

The pronunciation of "route" is discussed from time to time in
alt.usage.english. Both the "oo" and "ow" pronunciations are used
for
"route" in the US.

Yes, I've noticed that, and with the letter zed (or zee).

I think it was the last time we discussed it there that I had just
watched an American movie on TV and had noticed in a scene in which
two characters were discussing how to get somewhere that one used
the
"ow" sound and the other the "oo".

I've spotted this too, including in Stargate Atlantis where UK-born
actor David Hewlett plays a Canadian: apparently the Canadians have
pronunciations more like ours than the USians so this was a kind of
get-out for Dr McKay's "Zep Pee Em" (Zero Point Module).

Since you two have gone way off the subject, how about changing it
yet
again and going into the definition of the words "eroticism" and
"pornography" and the merits and/or demerits of both.

Is or rather was Anais Nin a writer of erotography or pornography?

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the
apostrophe
is there to indicate a contraction of the full expression? They
didn't
teach me either but I just added two and two together to arrive at
the
following logical conclusion.

Let's see... "It's" is the shortened version of "It is" or "It
has" or
some such other expression and "didn't" is a shortened version of
"did
not", while in, for example, "The boy's thingie" is a contraction for
"The thingie of the boy"... ;-)

But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the
set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!

Though I never saw this subject explained so succinctly and so
clearly
in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher
who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language
is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No, unfortunately I am
not that Dutchman. Not even Dutch!

Oh, I never told you that in my younger days I was a teacher of
English
as a foreign language to teenagers for a couple of years until I
gave up
teaching over poor pay. That was over half a century ago, but what
is it
they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

And once the boys and girls I used to teach got this concept of the
apostrophe being there to stand for an abbreviation, they didn't make
any such stupid mistakes any more.
-- choro


If only it were that simple and straight-forward!! But it isn't.
Look at the apostrophies in these two sentences;
It's the boy's book.
It isn't the boys' book.

You'll see where an apostrophy doesn't signify a contraction but a
possessive genitive derived from Germanic genitive case.

Ed's very own contribution to "its" and "it's".

You are right, you b****rd! ;-)

I knew I had boo-booed somewhere! But still what did I say?...

"But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get it?!"

I am talking only about "Its" here and in your example the word "boy/s"
(not Its or Their) in "The boy's thingie..." and "The boys' thingie..."
fall outside this *"Its Caveat"*!

And besides using such terms as "possessive genitive" only confuses the
average person or student. Keep it simple, as says my old classmate who
has made a billion! Why complicate things?

Do you have to understand the laws of chemistry to fry an egg or indeed
to boil one?

Ah, but boiling an egg is an art in itself!!! Or do you want to
approach
the problem through understanding exactly what happens when you boil an
egg? Just boil the bloody thing!

I remember my ex jumping into the garden when she tried frying an egg
for the very first time for me! Apparently she used to get the oil so
hot that the egg spluttered wildly when she broke it into the frying
pan! Stupid bitch!
-- choro

No no, you shouldn't investigate things too deeply. It drives some nuts
and it brings little benefit to humanity. We should all go back to an
agrarian economy, believe in a flat earth and the geocentric map of the
solar system. We certainly shouldn't go running through the streets of a
city in the nude crying "Eureka" like Archimedes.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Draco dormiens non est titillandus.

Some nutters even discuss the plural of acronyms; whether they should
have an apostrophe or not.
Is it "CDs" or "CD's"?
I think these plagues of the earth should be hanged, drawn and
quartered, as was William Wallace for trying to liberate them there
Celtic Scots.

Ed the stepping-stone (Nemo me impune lacessit)

Well said. But the plural of CD is surely CDs and not CD's. ;-)

I try to stick to this rule wherever possible but one day I was dealing
with another acronym and felt that I had no option but to use the damned
apostrophe! I'll be damned if I can now recall which acronym it was.

Such is life! I am right at this moment listening to and partly watching
the New Year Day's Concert of 1989 with the VPO under Carlos Kleiber! An
unbeatable combination. Absolutely *bootiful*; all 1 hour and 42 minutes
of it, courtesy of some nutter who has got nothing better to do than to
make available the video of the full concert on YouTube! Bloody good
sound as well as fairly good cinematic definition, actually.
-- choro

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Ed

You are right again both about the staggering amount of material on
YouTube as well about people wanting to share with other like-minded
people the things that give them joy. For we get the greatest joy in
life by giving and by sharing. I'll never forget the joy I got when I
gave a girl I know a watch I had foolishly bought on eBay. I didn't need
a watch, in any case. It was a nice two tone unisex watch and at first
she didn't want to accept it. But I could see that she liked it and I'll
never forget the joy in her eyes when she finally decided to accept it
as a no strings attached present from me. I could understand why at
first she did not want to accept it considering the yawning age gap
between us, and the fact that I had given her nice presents before. We
were both aware of the attraction between us and I guess she wanted to
keep some distance due to the age gap between us, which is perfectly
understandable. But seeing the joy in her eyes when she finally accepted
it when I stressed that it was a no strings attached present, made my
day. I was over the moon with the joy of giving, or sharing. We have
been good friends for several years now and our relationship is going to
remain like that.

And that recording of Beethoven's 5th that you mention is probably the
very best rendition of that oeuvre ever. I first listened to that CD
years ago when it came to my notice at the local library. Listening to
it on some decent speakers at home was an eye (and ear) opener for me.
Mind you, the VPO is definitely one of the finest, if not the finest,
orchestras in the world. And under a conductor like Carlos Kleiber they
are simply out of this world.
-- choro

I do have to say, though, that I think it takes an extremely
well-tuned ear to hear the subtle differences among the greats.

I guess you are right. It is the same with being a restaurant critic,
for example. Interest, experience all come in. I remember listening to
some piano work played by a famous player who shall remain nameless. As
it happened, I had a friend who is a world class classical guitarist
whose wife happened to be quite a good professional pianist. And my
guitarist friend recommended that I listen to the George Bolet version
of the same work and of course I took his advice and bought the George
Bolet version. And as soon as I put the disc in the CD player, I could
hear the difference. And because I was familiar with the work the
difference was glaring. I guess I have the benefit of an education in
music even though I did not become a professional musician but I still
have the benefit of a pair of trained ears.
-- choro

 

[choro]

On 14/11/2011 23:09, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 19:21, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 15:39, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 12:17, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 11:56, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 09:28, John M Ward wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:39 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message<[email protected]>, John M Ward
[]
I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's
country
of origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is
hard
to say which is better or whether one is right and the other
wrong.

I'm in England too, but we shouldn't be smug: just because it
came
from here, no reason to assume pronunciation - or grammar, or
anything else - has remained unchanged here but changed in USA,
rather than vice versa! (Compare "gotten".)

[I tend to think our "root" pronunciation is correct as it
matches
the French which I think is the origin. BICBW.]

The pronunciation of "route" is discussed from time to time in
alt.usage.english. Both the "oo" and "ow" pronunciations are used
for
"route" in the US.

Yes, I've noticed that, and with the letter zed (or zee).

I think it was the last time we discussed it there that I had
just
watched an American movie on TV and had noticed in a scene in
which
two characters were discussing how to get somewhere that one used
the
"ow" sound and the other the "oo".

I've spotted this too, including in Stargate Atlantis where
UK-born
actor David Hewlett plays a Canadian: apparently the Canadians
have
pronunciations more like ours than the USians so this was a
kind of
get-out for Dr McKay's "Zep Pee Em" (Zero Point Module).

Since you two have gone way off the subject, how about changing it
yet
again and going into the definition of the words "eroticism" and
"pornography" and the merits and/or demerits of both.

Is or rather was Anais Nin a writer of erotography or pornography?

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in
the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet
group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the
apostrophe
is there to indicate a contraction of the full expression? They
didn't
teach me either but I just added two and two together to arrive at
the
following logical conclusion.

Let's see... "It's" is the shortened version of "It is" or "It
has" or
some such other expression and "didn't" is a shortened version of
"did
not", while in, for example, "The boy's thingie" is a contraction
for
"The thingie of the boy"... ;-)

But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the
set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its
size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!

Though I never saw this subject explained so succinctly and so
clearly
in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher
who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language
is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No, unfortunately
I am
not that Dutchman. Not even Dutch!

Oh, I never told you that in my younger days I was a teacher of
English
as a foreign language to teenagers for a couple of years until I
gave up
teaching over poor pay. That was over half a century ago, but what
is it
they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

And once the boys and girls I used to teach got this concept of the
apostrophe being there to stand for an abbreviation, they didn't
make
any such stupid mistakes any more.
-- choro


If only it were that simple and straight-forward!! But it isn't.
Look at the apostrophies in these two sentences;
It's the boy's book.
It isn't the boys' book.

You'll see where an apostrophy doesn't signify a contraction but a
possessive genitive derived from Germanic genitive case.

Ed's very own contribution to "its" and "it's".

You are right, you b****rd! ;-)

I knew I had boo-booed somewhere! But still what did I say?...

"But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the
set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!"

I am talking only about "Its" here and in your example the word
"boy/s"
(not Its or Their) in "The boy's thingie..." and "The boys'
thingie..."
fall outside this *"Its Caveat"*!

And besides using such terms as "possessive genitive" only confuses
the
average person or student. Keep it simple, as says my old classmate
who
has made a billion! Why complicate things?

Do you have to understand the laws of chemistry to fry an egg or
indeed
to boil one?

Ah, but boiling an egg is an art in itself!!! Or do you want to
approach
the problem through understanding exactly what happens when you
boil an
egg? Just boil the bloody thing!

I remember my ex jumping into the garden when she tried frying an egg
for the very first time for me! Apparently she used to get the oil so
hot that the egg spluttered wildly when she broke it into the frying
pan! Stupid bitch!
-- choro

No no, you shouldn't investigate things too deeply. It drives some
nuts
and it brings little benefit to humanity. We should all go back to an
agrarian economy, believe in a flat earth and the geocentric map of
the
solar system. We certainly shouldn't go running through the streets
of a
city in the nude crying "Eureka" like Archimedes.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Draco dormiens non est titillandus.

Some nutters even discuss the plural of acronyms; whether they should
have an apostrophe or not.
Is it "CDs" or "CD's"?
I think these plagues of the earth should be hanged, drawn and
quartered, as was William Wallace for trying to liberate them there
Celtic Scots.

Ed the stepping-stone (Nemo me impune lacessit)

Well said. But the plural of CD is surely CDs and not CD's. ;-)

I try to stick to this rule wherever possible but one day I was dealing
with another acronym and felt that I had no option but to use the
damned
apostrophe! I'll be damned if I can now recall which acronym it was.

Such is life! I am right at this moment listening to and partly
watching
the New Year Day's Concert of 1989 with the VPO under Carlos
Kleiber! An
unbeatable combination. Absolutely *bootiful*; all 1 hour and 42
minutes
of it, courtesy of some nutter who has got nothing better to do than to
make available the video of the full concert on YouTube! Bloody good
sound as well as fairly good cinematic definition, actually.
-- choro

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Ed

You are right again both about the staggering amount of material on
YouTube as well about people wanting to share with other like-minded
people the things that give them joy. For we get the greatest joy in
life by giving and by sharing. I'll never forget the joy I got when I
gave a girl I know a watch I had foolishly bought on eBay. I didn't need
a watch, in any case. It was a nice two tone unisex watch and at first
she didn't want to accept it. But I could see that she liked it and I'll
never forget the joy in her eyes when she finally decided to accept it
as a no strings attached present from me. I could understand why at
first she did not want to accept it considering the yawning age gap
between us, and the fact that I had given her nice presents before. We
were both aware of the attraction between us and I guess she wanted to
keep some distance due to the age gap between us, which is perfectly
understandable. But seeing the joy in her eyes when she finally accepted
it when I stressed that it was a no strings attached present, made my
day. I was over the moon with the joy of giving, or sharing. We have
been good friends for several years now and our relationship is going to
remain like that.

And that recording of Beethoven's 5th that you mention is probably the
very best rendition of that oeuvre ever. I first listened to that CD
years ago when it came to my notice at the local library. Listening to
it on some decent speakers at home was an eye (and ear) opener for me.
Mind you, the VPO is definitely one of the finest, if not the finest,
orchestras in the world. And under a conductor like Carlos Kleiber they
are simply out of this world.
-- choro

You've managed to incorporate a lot of self-interest in that analysis of
a moral action.
Personally I go along with it. I tend to suspect claims of disinterested
altruism these days. We live in a pretty cynical world, and anybody
affirming some higher cause such as "humanity" or "God" soon falls under
distrust. We've all become like Diogenes with his lamp in old Athens,
walking around in broad daylight with a lit lamp and explaining that he
was searching for just one honest man.

During the Credit Crunch a few years back I heard a very well respected
business reporter on the BBC state quite bluntly that "the markets are
morally neutral". That hit me like a ton of bricks, because whenever I
pictured all those speculator bankers sitting in front of their computer
screens and grabbing the right split second to shift millions of dollars
from one hard drive to another, I imagined a thinking mind inside the
brain. But no! The markets are morally neutral and all those bankers
suspend their (no doubt) very moral and thinking-ahead minds in order to
make a fast buck; never thinking for one second that they might be
turfing some poor soul out of their house, or depriving them of a
retirement pension.

The markets are morally neutral and nobody gives a damn for the greater
good.

There was a time when Mother Church was a power in the land; and the
peasants labouring in the fields for their feudal lords did so under the
protective overlordship of monks and nuns praying for their souls and
future life in the beyond. As they walked to the fields the matin bells
would chime out, and as they went home the vespers would ring; and if
you approached the abbey walls you'd hear Gregorian chanting as the
choirs appealed to God to safeguard the poor peasantry.
There was a time when the most famous and moral man in Christendom lived
atop a pillar that he'd built on the edge of the desert, and he spent
years up there bowing to the east and sometimes standing on one leg for
years, in devotion to his Saviour. And tourists would flock to see him.
But then came the revolt of the Enlightenment. Freedom and the pursuit
of happiness. And "rights". Each individual his own kingdom.
And now here we are at another cross-roads, where we've followed the
path of enlightened self-interest to its end. How will the world react?

Ed

Oh, you've gone a bit too deep for me this time. But I'll touch on one
point: the markets being morally neutral, as claimed by that BBC
reporter. Of course they are neutral. How can anything be be but
"neutral" where the concept of morality is non-existent? Which BTW
reminds me of that book I have entitled "Wall Street Ethics" with
several hundred absolutely blank pages. ;-)

As for religion, all or at least most religions are good UNTIL they get
organised and set up their establishments at which point you can
guarantee that corruption has already set in.

Ever heard of the word "hijacking"?!
-- choro

 

[choro]

I grew up in a home where German was spoken on a regular basis,
especially by the adults, not to mention the years I spent in Germany
while I was in the military, so something like "Wicktas" would have
been immediately recognizable to me.

Would that "W" in "Wickta's" be the German wabble-u or the English
wabble-u? ;-)
-- choro

 

[Mack A. Damia]

On 15/11/2011 13:12, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 23:09, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 19:21, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 15:39, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 12:17, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 11:56, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 09:28, John M Ward wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:39 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message<[email protected]>, John M Ward
[]
I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's
country
of origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard
to say which is better or whether one is right and the other
wrong.

I'm in England too, but we shouldn't be smug: just because it came
from here, no reason to assume pronunciation - or grammar, or
anything else - has remained unchanged here but changed in USA,
rather than vice versa! (Compare "gotten".)

[I tend to think our "root" pronunciation is correct as it matches
the French which I think is the origin. BICBW.]

The pronunciation of "route" is discussed from time to time in
alt.usage.english. Both the "oo" and "ow" pronunciations are used
for
"route" in the US.

Yes, I've noticed that, and with the letter zed (or zee).

I think it was the last time we discussed it there that I had just
watched an American movie on TV and had noticed in a scene in which
two characters were discussing how to get somewhere that one used
the
"ow" sound and the other the "oo".

I've spotted this too, including in Stargate Atlantis where UK-born
actor David Hewlett plays a Canadian: apparently the Canadians have
pronunciations more like ours than the USians so this was a kind of
get-out for Dr McKay's "Zep Pee Em" (Zero Point Module).

Since you two have gone way off the subject, how about changing it
yet
again and going into the definition of the words "eroticism" and
"pornography" and the merits and/or demerits of both.

Is or rather was Anais Nin a writer of erotography or pornography?

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the
apostrophe
is there to indicate a contraction of the full expression? They
didn't
teach me either but I just added two and two together to arrive at
the
following logical conclusion.

Let's see... "It's" is the shortened version of "It is" or "It
has" or
some such other expression and "didn't" is a shortened version of
"did
not", while in, for example, "The boy's thingie" is a contraction for
"The thingie of the boy"... ;-)

But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the
set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!

Though I never saw this subject explained so succinctly and so
clearly
in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher
who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language
is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No, unfortunately I am
not that Dutchman. Not even Dutch!

Oh, I never told you that in my younger days I was a teacher of
English
as a foreign language to teenagers for a couple of years until I
gave up
teaching over poor pay. That was over half a century ago, but what
is it
they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

And once the boys and girls I used to teach got this concept of the
apostrophe being there to stand for an abbreviation, they didn't make
any such stupid mistakes any more.
-- choro


If only it were that simple and straight-forward!! But it isn't.
Look at the apostrophies in these two sentences;
It's the boy's book.
It isn't the boys' book.

You'll see where an apostrophy doesn't signify a contraction but a
possessive genitive derived from Germanic genitive case.

Ed's very own contribution to "its" and "it's".

You are right, you b****rd! ;-)

I knew I had boo-booed somewhere! But still what did I say?...

"But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get it?!"

I am talking only about "Its" here and in your example the word "boy/s"
(not Its or Their) in "The boy's thingie..." and "The boys' thingie..."
fall outside this *"Its Caveat"*!

And besides using such terms as "possessive genitive" only confuses the
average person or student. Keep it simple, as says my old classmate who
has made a billion! Why complicate things?

Do you have to understand the laws of chemistry to fry an egg or indeed
to boil one?

Ah, but boiling an egg is an art in itself!!! Or do you want to
approach
the problem through understanding exactly what happens when you boil an
egg? Just boil the bloody thing!

I remember my ex jumping into the garden when she tried frying an egg
for the very first time for me! Apparently she used to get the oil so
hot that the egg spluttered wildly when she broke it into the frying
pan! Stupid bitch!
-- choro

No no, you shouldn't investigate things too deeply. It drives some nuts
and it brings little benefit to humanity. We should all go back to an
agrarian economy, believe in a flat earth and the geocentric map of the
solar system. We certainly shouldn't go running through the streets of a
city in the nude crying "Eureka" like Archimedes.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Draco dormiens non est titillandus.

Some nutters even discuss the plural of acronyms; whether they should
have an apostrophe or not.
Is it "CDs" or "CD's"?
I think these plagues of the earth should be hanged, drawn and
quartered, as was William Wallace for trying to liberate them there
Celtic Scots.

Ed the stepping-stone (Nemo me impune lacessit)

Well said. But the plural of CD is surely CDs and not CD's. ;-)

I try to stick to this rule wherever possible but one day I was dealing
with another acronym and felt that I had no option but to use the damned
apostrophe! I'll be damned if I can now recall which acronym it was.

Such is life! I am right at this moment listening to and partly watching
the New Year Day's Concert of 1989 with the VPO under Carlos Kleiber! An
unbeatable combination. Absolutely *bootiful*; all 1 hour and 42 minutes
of it, courtesy of some nutter who has got nothing better to do than to
make available the video of the full concert on YouTube! Bloody good
sound as well as fairly good cinematic definition, actually.
-- choro

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Ed

You are right again both about the staggering amount of material on
YouTube as well about people wanting to share with other like-minded
people the things that give them joy. For we get the greatest joy in
life by giving and by sharing. I'll never forget the joy I got when I
gave a girl I know a watch I had foolishly bought on eBay. I didn't need
a watch, in any case. It was a nice two tone unisex watch and at first
she didn't want to accept it. But I could see that she liked it and I'll
never forget the joy in her eyes when she finally decided to accept it
as a no strings attached present from me. I could understand why at
first she did not want to accept it considering the yawning age gap
between us, and the fact that I had given her nice presents before. We
were both aware of the attraction between us and I guess she wanted to
keep some distance due to the age gap between us, which is perfectly
understandable. But seeing the joy in her eyes when she finally accepted
it when I stressed that it was a no strings attached present, made my
day. I was over the moon with the joy of giving, or sharing. We have
been good friends for several years now and our relationship is going to
remain like that.

And that recording of Beethoven's 5th that you mention is probably the
very best rendition of that oeuvre ever. I first listened to that CD
years ago when it came to my notice at the local library. Listening to
it on some decent speakers at home was an eye (and ear) opener for me.
Mind you, the VPO is definitely one of the finest, if not the finest,
orchestras in the world. And under a conductor like Carlos Kleiber they
are simply out of this world.
-- choro

I do have to say, though, that I think it takes an extremely
well-tuned ear to hear the subtle differences among the greats.

I guess you are right. It is the same with being a restaurant critic,
for example. Interest, experience all come in. I remember listening to
some piano work played by a famous player who shall remain nameless. As
it happened, I had a friend who is a world class classical guitarist
whose wife happened to be quite a good professional pianist. And my
guitarist friend recommended that I listen to the George Bolet version
of the same work and of course I took his advice and bought the George
Bolet version. And as soon as I put the disc in the CD player, I could
hear the difference. And because I was familiar with the work the
difference was glaring. I guess I have the benefit of an education in
music even though I did not become a professional musician but I still
have the benefit of a pair of trained ears.
-- choro

Well, I may be lying to myself, because I can tell the difference
between an orchestra just playing the notes (going through the
motions) as opposed to an orchestra actually playing and feeling the
musical work. - but among the "greats", it can be difficult. I can
tell the difference between, say, E. Power Biggs who, I believe
captured the soul of Bach and somebody such as Virgil Fox (was he more
of a "pop-organist?).

But I envy you with your education in music, and you probably play an
instrument. I am in constant awe of those composers who think in
terms of beautiful music. I just can't imagine how it is done. I
think heard somebody (it may have been McCartney) say that it's like
an earworm you wake up with - except it's a new work of art.

 

[choro]

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

What's this Zet? I say zed ... (-:

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

That was me: I thought the denizens of APIHNA would enjoy how the thread
had drifted.

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the apostrophe

Actually, APIHNA considers most aspects of English usage (for example
the tautology in how some abbreviations are used - what we call PNS
syndrome, where PN stands for PIN number). It's a sort of variant of
alt.usage.english and alt.english.usage, without the flames and much
more friendly (and low traffic).
[]

in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No,

Hmm. Some would disagree. But who is the person you have in mind, anyway?
[]

is it they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

(Or in my case, parents are teachers, ... though I don't know if that's
the reason I'm pedagogic.)
[]

PS. Please direct your responses to the
"alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe" group and let's (abbreviated in
lieu of "let us"!) leave the "alt.windows7.general" group to
discussions more relevant to Windows 7 issues.

You didn't (-:

Nobody did apparently! So I have got an excuse. Besides what do they
call that medical condition we all get in old dottage? ;-)

Is it supposed to start with an A or with an S? I keep forgetting!

I am not young you know!
-- choro

 

[choro]

On 15/11/2011 13:12, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 23:09, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 19:21, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 15:39, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 12:17, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 11:56, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 09:28, John M Ward wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:39 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message<[email protected]>, John M Ward
[]
I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's
country
of origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard
to say which is better or whether one is right and the other
wrong.

I'm in England too, but we shouldn't be smug: just because it came
from here, no reason to assume pronunciation - or grammar, or
anything else - has remained unchanged here but changed in USA,
rather than vice versa! (Compare "gotten".)

[I tend to think our "root" pronunciation is correct as it matches
the French which I think is the origin. BICBW.]

The pronunciation of "route" is discussed from time to time in
alt.usage.english. Both the "oo" and "ow" pronunciations are used
for
"route" in the US.

Yes, I've noticed that, and with the letter zed (or zee).

I think it was the last time we discussed it there that I had just
watched an American movie on TV and had noticed in a scene in which
two characters were discussing how to get somewhere that one used
the
"ow" sound and the other the "oo".

I've spotted this too, including in Stargate Atlantis where UK-born
actor David Hewlett plays a Canadian: apparently the Canadians have
pronunciations more like ours than the USians so this was a kind of
get-out for Dr McKay's "Zep Pee Em" (Zero Point Module).

Since you two have gone way off the subject, how about changing it
yet
again and going into the definition of the words "eroticism" and
"pornography" and the merits and/or demerits of both.

Is or rather was Anais Nin a writer of erotography or pornography?

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the
apostrophe
is there to indicate a contraction of the full expression? They
didn't
teach me either but I just added two and two together to arrive at
the
following logical conclusion.

Let's see... "It's" is the shortened version of "It is" or "It
has" or
some such other expression and "didn't" is a shortened version of
"did
not", while in, for example, "The boy's thingie" is a contraction for
"The thingie of the boy"... ;-)

But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the
set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!

Though I never saw this subject explained so succinctly and so
clearly
in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher
who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language
is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No, unfortunately I am
not that Dutchman. Not even Dutch!

Oh, I never told you that in my younger days I was a teacher of
English
as a foreign language to teenagers for a couple of years until I
gave up
teaching over poor pay. That was over half a century ago, but what
is it
they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

And once the boys and girls I used to teach got this concept of the
apostrophe being there to stand for an abbreviation, they didn't make
any such stupid mistakes any more.
-- choro


If only it were that simple and straight-forward!! But it isn't.
Look at the apostrophies in these two sentences;
It's the boy's book.
It isn't the boys' book.

You'll see where an apostrophy doesn't signify a contraction but a
possessive genitive derived from Germanic genitive case.

Ed's very own contribution to "its" and "it's".

You are right, you b****rd! ;-)

I knew I had boo-booed somewhere! But still what did I say?...

"But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get it?!"

I am talking only about "Its" here and in your example the word "boy/s"
(not Its or Their) in "The boy's thingie..." and "The boys' thingie..."
fall outside this *"Its Caveat"*!

And besides using such terms as "possessive genitive" only confuses the
average person or student. Keep it simple, as says my old classmate who
has made a billion! Why complicate things?

Do you have to understand the laws of chemistry to fry an egg or indeed
to boil one?

Ah, but boiling an egg is an art in itself!!! Or do you want to
approach
the problem through understanding exactly what happens when you boil an
egg? Just boil the bloody thing!

I remember my ex jumping into the garden when she tried frying an egg
for the very first time for me! Apparently she used to get the oil so
hot that the egg spluttered wildly when she broke it into the frying
pan! Stupid bitch!
-- choro

No no, you shouldn't investigate things too deeply. It drives some nuts
and it brings little benefit to humanity. We should all go back to an
agrarian economy, believe in a flat earth and the geocentric map of the
solar system. We certainly shouldn't go running through the streets of a
city in the nude crying "Eureka" like Archimedes.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Draco dormiens non est titillandus.

Some nutters even discuss the plural of acronyms; whether they should
have an apostrophe or not.
Is it "CDs" or "CD's"?
I think these plagues of the earth should be hanged, drawn and
quartered, as was William Wallace for trying to liberate them there
Celtic Scots.

Ed the stepping-stone (Nemo me impune lacessit)

Well said. But the plural of CD is surely CDs and not CD's. ;-)

I try to stick to this rule wherever possible but one day I was dealing
with another acronym and felt that I had no option but to use the damned
apostrophe! I'll be damned if I can now recall which acronym it was.

Such is life! I am right at this moment listening to and partly watching
the New Year Day's Concert of 1989 with the VPO under Carlos Kleiber! An
unbeatable combination. Absolutely *bootiful*; all 1 hour and 42 minutes
of it, courtesy of some nutter who has got nothing better to do than to
make available the video of the full concert on YouTube! Bloody good
sound as well as fairly good cinematic definition, actually.
-- choro

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Ed

You are right again both about the staggering amount of material on
YouTube as well about people wanting to share with other like-minded
people the things that give them joy. For we get the greatest joy in
life by giving and by sharing. I'll never forget the joy I got when I
gave a girl I know a watch I had foolishly bought on eBay. I didn't need
a watch, in any case. It was a nice two tone unisex watch and at first
she didn't want to accept it. But I could see that she liked it and I'll
never forget the joy in her eyes when she finally decided to accept it
as a no strings attached present from me. I could understand why at
first she did not want to accept it considering the yawning age gap
between us, and the fact that I had given her nice presents before. We
were both aware of the attraction between us and I guess she wanted to
keep some distance due to the age gap between us, which is perfectly
understandable. But seeing the joy in her eyes when she finally accepted
it when I stressed that it was a no strings attached present, made my
day. I was over the moon with the joy of giving, or sharing. We have
been good friends for several years now and our relationship is going to
remain like that.

And that recording of Beethoven's 5th that you mention is probably the
very best rendition of that oeuvre ever. I first listened to that CD
years ago when it came to my notice at the local library. Listening to
it on some decent speakers at home was an eye (and ear) opener for me.
Mind you, the VPO is definitely one of the finest, if not the finest,
orchestras in the world. And under a conductor like Carlos Kleiber they
are simply out of this world.
-- choro

I do have to say, though, that I think it takes an extremely
well-tuned ear to hear the subtle differences among the greats.

I guess you are right. It is the same with being a restaurant critic,
for example. Interest, experience all come in. I remember listening to
some piano work played by a famous player who shall remain nameless. As
it happened, I had a friend who is a world class classical guitarist
whose wife happened to be quite a good professional pianist. And my
guitarist friend recommended that I listen to the George Bolet version
of the same work and of course I took his advice and bought the George
Bolet version. And as soon as I put the disc in the CD player, I could
hear the difference. And because I was familiar with the work the
difference was glaring. I guess I have the benefit of an education in
music even though I did not become a professional musician but I still
have the benefit of a pair of trained ears.
-- choro

Well, I may be lying to myself, because I can tell the difference
between an orchestra just playing the notes (going through the
motions) as opposed to an orchestra actually playing and feeling the
musical work. - but among the "greats", it can be difficult. I can
tell the difference between, say, E. Power Biggs who, I believe
captured the soul of Bach and somebody such as Virgil Fox (was he more
of a "pop-organist?).

But I envy you with your education in music, and you probably play an
instrument. I am in constant awe of those composers who think in
terms of beautiful music. I just can't imagine how it is done. I
think heard somebody (it may have been McCartney) say that it's like
an earworm you wake up with - except it's a new work of art.

Since you obviously like organ music and Bach, have a listen to this...
Amazing for a boy his age!

Also listen to the following...

....and here is a truly great artist playing the same Bach Toccata and
Fugue...

E. Power Biggs on the Pedal Harpsichord...absolutely amazing... not only
the playing but also the quality of the sound and the quality of the
recording...

And the other chap you mention? Virgil Fox? Did a YouTube search and
tried to listen to some of his stuff... well, I tried! Honestly I did
and you know what went through my mind: Oh, God!!! How awful!!!!

For a moment I thought I was having a nightmare as I recalled the
"pianist" Liberace!

But you know, these, I won't even call them second rate artists, *do*
serve a useful purpose if only to make us appreciate truly great artists
when we hear them! But one thing we mustn't do is not to get confused by
expressions such as "popular" or so-called "famous" artists as opposed
to truly great masters.

Composing of course is a great art. I doubt that works are just inspired
in a jiffy. It doesn't work out like that. If you read about Beethoven
you will note that he used to have a book in which he would scribble
tunes as they came to his head. Tunes are the building blocks of any
musical work. But they are only the start. The edifice is constructed
around such inspired tunes. Not everything that passes for music these
days is music. Good sound track material may be, but not music.
-- choro

 

[Mack A. Damia]

On 15/11/2011 18:58, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On 15/11/2011 13:12, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 23:09, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 19:21, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 15:39, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 12:17, Ed Cryer wrote:
On 14/11/2011 11:56, choro wrote:
On 14/11/2011 09:28, John M Ward wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:39 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message<[email protected]>, John M Ward
[]
I am in the USA.

Well, no-one's perfect )

As for the pronunciation of "route", here in the language's
country
of origin in rhymes with root rather than rout, though it is hard
to say which is better or whether one is right and the other
wrong.

I'm in England too, but we shouldn't be smug: just because it came
from here, no reason to assume pronunciation - or grammar, or
anything else - has remained unchanged here but changed in USA,
rather than vice versa! (Compare "gotten".)

[I tend to think our "root" pronunciation is correct as it matches
the French which I think is the origin. BICBW.]

The pronunciation of "route" is discussed from time to time in
alt.usage.english. Both the "oo" and "ow" pronunciations are used
for
"route" in the US.

Yes, I've noticed that, and with the letter zed (or zee).

I think it was the last time we discussed it there that I had just
watched an American movie on TV and had noticed in a scene in which
two characters were discussing how to get somewhere that one used
the
"ow" sound and the other the "oo".

I've spotted this too, including in Stargate Atlantis where UK-born
actor David Hewlett plays a Canadian: apparently the Canadians have
pronunciations more like ours than the USians so this was a kind of
get-out for Dr McKay's "Zep Pee Em" (Zero Point Module).

Since you two have gone way off the subject, how about changing it
yet
again and going into the definition of the words "eroticism" and
"pornography" and the merits and/or demerits of both.

Is or rather was Anais Nin a writer of erotography or pornography?

Forget about "route" vs "rout" and "Zet" versus "Zee"!

And what do I see? This conversation is also being carried on in the
group "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe"!

My God, what is the world coming to? I learned English as a foreign
language in my teens and I never thought that I'd see a Usenet group
dedicated to "Its" vs "It's". Don't they teach you that the
apostrophe
is there to indicate a contraction of the full expression? They
didn't
teach me either but I just added two and two together to arrive at
the
following logical conclusion.

Let's see... "It's" is the shortened version of "It is" or "It
has" or
some such other expression and "didn't" is a shortened version of
"did
not", while in, for example, "The boy's thingie" is a contraction for
"The thingie of the boy"... ;-)

But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the
set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get
it?!

Though I never saw this subject explained so succinctly and so
clearly
in any textbook, I am afraid! But talking to an English language
teacher
who was himself English, the foremost authority on the English
language
is a Dutchman! There we have it in a nutshell! No, unfortunately I am
not that Dutchman. Not even Dutch!

Oh, I never told you that in my younger days I was a teacher of
English
as a foreign language to teenagers for a couple of years until I
gave up
teaching over poor pay. That was over half a century ago, but what
is it
they say. "Once a teacher, always a teacher"!

And once the boys and girls I used to teach got this concept of the
apostrophe being there to stand for an abbreviation, they didn't make
any such stupid mistakes any more.
-- choro


If only it were that simple and straight-forward!! But it isn't.
Look at the apostrophies in these two sentences;
It's the boy's book.
It isn't the boys' book.

You'll see where an apostrophy doesn't signify a contraction but a
possessive genitive derived from Germanic genitive case.

Ed's very own contribution to "its" and "it's".

You are right, you b****rd! ;-)

I knew I had boo-booed somewhere! But still what did I say?...

"But bear all this in mind with the *caveat* that "its" has *no*
apostrophe if it can simply be replaced by any of the words in the set
*my/your/his/her/its/our/your/their*. An example would be: "Its size
is..." where "Its" can be replaced with "His/Her size is...". Get it?!"

I am talking only about "Its" here and in your example the word "boy/s"
(not Its or Their) in "The boy's thingie..." and "The boys' thingie..."
fall outside this *"Its Caveat"*!

And besides using such terms as "possessive genitive" only confuses the
average person or student. Keep it simple, as says my old classmate who
has made a billion! Why complicate things?

Do you have to understand the laws of chemistry to fry an egg or indeed
to boil one?

Ah, but boiling an egg is an art in itself!!! Or do you want to
approach
the problem through understanding exactly what happens when you boil an
egg? Just boil the bloody thing!

I remember my ex jumping into the garden when she tried frying an egg
for the very first time for me! Apparently she used to get the oil so
hot that the egg spluttered wildly when she broke it into the frying
pan! Stupid bitch!
-- choro

No no, you shouldn't investigate things too deeply. It drives some nuts
and it brings little benefit to humanity. We should all go back to an
agrarian economy, believe in a flat earth and the geocentric map of the
solar system. We certainly shouldn't go running through the streets of a
city in the nude crying "Eureka" like Archimedes.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Draco dormiens non est titillandus.

Some nutters even discuss the plural of acronyms; whether they should
have an apostrophe or not.
Is it "CDs" or "CD's"?
I think these plagues of the earth should be hanged, drawn and
quartered, as was William Wallace for trying to liberate them there
Celtic Scots.

Ed the stepping-stone (Nemo me impune lacessit)

Well said. But the plural of CD is surely CDs and not CD's. ;-)

I try to stick to this rule wherever possible but one day I was dealing
with another acronym and felt that I had no option but to use the damned
apostrophe! I'll be damned if I can now recall which acronym it was.

Such is life! I am right at this moment listening to and partly watching
the New Year Day's Concert of 1989 with the VPO under Carlos Kleiber! An
unbeatable combination. Absolutely *bootiful*; all 1 hour and 42 minutes
of it, courtesy of some nutter who has got nothing better to do than to
make available the video of the full concert on YouTube! Bloody good
sound as well as fairly good cinematic definition, actually.
-- choro

It is quite staggering just how much you can get on youtube. There's a
famous 1975 recording of the Vienna Phil under Carlos K playing
Beethoven's 5th symphony. There are tens and tens of rips from the vinyl
original on youtube.
I take it all in good part. I look at it this way; it's not so much
people with nothing better to do, but people wanting to share with the
world the things that have helped and inspired them; and that is a filip
to philanthropy and loving thy neighbour.

Ed

You are right again both about the staggering amount of material on
YouTube as well about people wanting to share with other like-minded
people the things that give them joy. For we get the greatest joy in
life by giving and by sharing. I'll never forget the joy I got when I
gave a girl I know a watch I had foolishly bought on eBay. I didn't need
a watch, in any case. It was a nice two tone unisex watch and at first
she didn't want to accept it. But I could see that she liked it and I'll
never forget the joy in her eyes when she finally decided to accept it
as a no strings attached present from me. I could understand why at
first she did not want to accept it considering the yawning age gap
between us, and the fact that I had given her nice presents before. We
were both aware of the attraction between us and I guess she wanted to
keep some distance due to the age gap between us, which is perfectly
understandable. But seeing the joy in her eyes when she finally accepted
it when I stressed that it was a no strings attached present, made my
day. I was over the moon with the joy of giving, or sharing. We have
been good friends for several years now and our relationship is going to
remain like that.

And that recording of Beethoven's 5th that you mention is probably the
very best rendition of that oeuvre ever. I first listened to that CD
years ago when it came to my notice at the local library. Listening to
it on some decent speakers at home was an eye (and ear) opener for me.
Mind you, the VPO is definitely one of the finest, if not the finest,
orchestras in the world. And under a conductor like Carlos Kleiber they
are simply out of this world.
-- choro

I do have to say, though, that I think it takes an extremely
well-tuned ear to hear the subtle differences among the greats.

I guess you are right. It is the same with being a restaurant critic,
for example. Interest, experience all come in. I remember listening to
some piano work played by a famous player who shall remain nameless. As
it happened, I had a friend who is a world class classical guitarist
whose wife happened to be quite a good professional pianist. And my
guitarist friend recommended that I listen to the George Bolet version
of the same work and of course I took his advice and bought the George
Bolet version. And as soon as I put the disc in the CD player, I could
hear the difference. And because I was familiar with the work the
difference was glaring. I guess I have the benefit of an education in
music even though I did not become a professional musician but I still
have the benefit of a pair of trained ears.
-- choro

Well, I may be lying to myself, because I can tell the difference
between an orchestra just playing the notes (going through the
motions) as opposed to an orchestra actually playing and feeling the
musical work. - but among the "greats", it can be difficult. I can
tell the difference between, say, E. Power Biggs who, I believe
captured the soul of Bach and somebody such as Virgil Fox (was he more
of a "pop-organist?).

But I envy you with your education in music, and you probably play an
instrument. I am in constant awe of those composers who think in
terms of beautiful music. I just can't imagine how it is done. I
think heard somebody (it may have been McCartney) say that it's like
an earworm you wake up with - except it's a new work of art.

Since you obviously like organ music and Bach, have a listen to this...
Amazing for a boy his age!

Also listen to the following...

...and here is a truly great artist playing the same Bach Toccata and
Fugue...

E. Power Biggs on the Pedal Harpsichord...absolutely amazing... not only
the playing but also the quality of the sound and the quality of the
recording...

And the other chap you mention? Virgil Fox? Did a YouTube search and
tried to listen to some of his stuff... well, I tried! Honestly I did
and you know what went through my mind: Oh, God!!! How awful!!!!

For a moment I thought I was having a nightmare as I recalled the
"pianist" Liberace!

But you know, these, I won't even call them second rate artists, *do*
serve a useful purpose if only to make us appreciate truly great artists
when we hear them! But one thing we mustn't do is not to get confused by
expressions such as "popular" or so-called "famous" artists as opposed
to truly great masters.

Composing of course is a great art. I doubt that works are just inspired
in a jiffy. It doesn't work out like that. If you read about Beethoven
you will note that he used to have a book in which he would scribble
tunes as they came to his head. Tunes are the building blocks of any
musical work. But they are only the start. The edifice is constructed
around such inspired tunes. Not everything that passes for music these
days is music. Good sound track material may be, but not music.
-- choro

Yes, I don't know what it was about Liberace, but he certainly was
popular in the 1950s and early 1960s. He wasn't a virtuoso by any
means but was enough of a showman and had some better-than basic
skills as a pianist to make the big time - but not in the classical
sense of the art.

I actually saw the chap at the Raja Theatre in Reading, PA - must have
been in the early 1960s. Also saw the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
play there (not too bad) and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company doing
H.M.S. Pinafore. Now that was enjoyable.

Thanks for the links. Haven't had time yet, but any organ music by
Bach touches my soul.