Cobol - Re: As Was Done With Training, Perhaps

Author

Re: As Was Done With Training, Perhaps

Alistair

2006-03-07, 7:55 am

docdwarf@panix.com wrote:
> In article <1141508228.173271.26940@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com>,
> Alistair <alistair@ld50macca.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>
> Eh? A clear and unambiguous use of the subjunctive is 'too easy a let
> out'? This seems to make as much sense as 'Yes, this point was addressed
> specifically... but for the nonce I'll ignore that, just for... some
> reason or another.'

Two points:

1. The word 'nonce' has a meaning in the UK which one might take as
offensive (certainly permitting of litigation).

2. In the UK, comedy show participants lambasting public individuals
often prefix their allegations with the word 'allegedly'. In law the
use of allegedly to distance the allegation from the speaker would not
be sufficient defence to a lawsuit. Similarly, 'might' is insufficient
to get you off of the hook.

>
>
> Some time after that, perhaps, the schools took up teaching something
> called 'web-searching' which could have educational results... but you
> were born, apparently, in an 'in-between generation' and as a result seem
> to be, in the words of that Wise Philosopher, Curly Howrad, 'Just a victim
> of circumstance!'
>
> DD

I thought the web was used to access porn?

2006-03-07, 7:55 am

In article <1141732559.882829.262780@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Alistair <alistair@ld50macca.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>docdwarf@panix.com wrote:
>
>Two points:
>
>1. The word 'nonce' has a meaning in the UK which one might take as
>offensive (certainly permitting of litigation).

Meaning, as Wittgenstein tells it, is the result of interpretation, Mr
Maclean; that being the case it might be wiser to request the author's
intent before one gets pissed over it.

(note to speakers of other dialects: 'piss' is a verb in English, derived
from the Old French 'pissier', 'to urinate'; as a colloquialism the
Britspeakers tend to use it to indicate intoxication or dismissal while
the USians tend to use it to indicate anger... my use above was intended
to be ambiguous.)

>
>2. In the UK, comedy show participants lambasting public individuals
>often prefix their allegations with the word 'allegedly'. In law the
>use of allegedly to distance the allegation from the speaker would not
>be sufficient defence to a lawsuit. Similarly, 'might' is insufficient
>to get you off of the hook.

I'll keep that in mind when I participate in a UK comedy show or in legal
proceedings; rest assured that it was my intent in using 'might' above as
a clear and unambiguous indicator that I was employing the subjunctive
mood. My apologies for having been so obscure that such an indication
required further explication, of course.

>
>
>I thought the web was used to access porn?

I barely know what *I* think, Mr Maclean, let alone anyone else... but
that you might see something as a tool towards a particular end does not,
I believe, limit the actual or possible use of said tool towards said
end... a wide, wonderful world out there, full of things to surprise and
teach, should one be sufficiently energetic to open one's eyes and mind.

DD

Howard Brazee

2006-03-07, 6:55 pm

On 7 Mar 2006 03:55:59 -0800, "Alistair"
<alistair@ld50macca.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>
>1. The word 'nonce' has a meaning in the UK which one might take as
>offensive (certainly permitting of litigation).

Interesting, The Oxford English Dictionary lists this secondary
meaning. It also lists as primary the meaning that we are familiar
with on this side of the pond.

Unless we are wanting to avoid Beavis & Butthead type chuckles, we
should be able to use the word in its primary meaning. (Don't talk
about putting a fag to your lips in a book if you want Americans to
get the same meaning as Brits get).

James J. Gavan

2006-03-07, 6:56 pm

Howard Brazee wrote:
> On 7 Mar 2006 03:55:59 -0800, "Alistair"
> <alistair@ld50macca.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Interesting, The Oxford English Dictionary lists this secondary
> meaning. It also lists as primary the meaning that we are familiar
> with on this side of the pond.
>
> Unless we are wanting to avoid Beavis & Butthead type chuckles, we
> should be able to use the word in its primary meaning. (Don't talk
> about putting a fag to your lips in a book if you want Americans to
> get the same meaning as Brits get).

You picked up on an interesting word - so I did go to my Concise OED
('64) for confirmation.

Fag -

(a) toil painfully, tire, make weary. A definition I had never heard of.
As a result of feeling weary after an arduous task I suppose you could
say "I feel fagged" - but more colloquially - "I feel shagged !", or "I
feel f....d !".

(b) a school fag - 'Tom Brown's School Days' - the senior boys had
juniors nominated as their 'fags', clean their rooms, polish their shoes
etc. The young kids had to run pronto when the word "Fag !" was bellowed
out.

(I think the first version filmed was 1940 starring Cedric Hardwicke as
the 'saintly' Headmaster Dr. Arnold and Freddie Bartholomew. Arnold
wanted to break things like the fagging system - akin to hazing.
Subsequent filming plus I believe a couple of BBC TV mini-series. One
English version had Robert Newton as the headmaster. Remember him from
'Treasure Island'- as Long John Silver, "Arrh Jim lad. Look 'e
here....". Had an uncle who worked for a contractor to the studios
providing lighting. Newton had a reputation for being pissed out of his
mind. When filming 'Tom Brown....", his most telling performances were
when he was as drunk as a skunk !).

There's even an on-line version of the book you can read :-

http://hughes.thefreelibrary.com/Tom-Browns-Schooldays

(c) Reference to cigarette - and don't know how that came about. Not
something you would be likely to see in a novel unless the character was
a Cockney : "You know the Cigarette Man in the 'X-Files'". "Who ?". "The
geezer wots always got a fag 'anging out of his mowth".

Faggot or Fagot -

Bundles of sticks or wood bound together as fuel. As used to send Joan
of Arc on her way to Heaven.

As a pair, unless the idiom has changed considerably since I left, the
words are sort of inter-changeable. Fag generally means slang for
cigarette; on the other hand Fag and Faggot can mean 'Boys will be boys'.

Jimmy

Howard Brazee

2006-03-08, 6:55 pm

On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 22:37:05 GMT, "James J. Gavan"
<jgavandeletethis@shaw.ca> wrote:

>'Tom Brown's School Days'

>Subsequent filming plus I believe a couple of BBC TV mini-series. One
>English version had Robert Newton as the headmaster.

I saw the 1971 mini-series, just in time for George MacDonald Fraser's
Flashman series.

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