Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site umd5.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!umd5!zben From: zben@umd5.UUCP Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: International Unix Message-ID: <780@umd5.UUCP> Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 05:06:53 EST Article-I.D.: umd5.780 Posted: Tue Nov 5 05:06:53 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 7-Nov-85 06:35:57 EST References: <2400@brl-tgr.ARPA> <864@mcvax.UUCP> <46@calma.UUCP> Reply-To: zben@umd5.UUCP (Ben Cranston) Organization: U of Md, CSC, College Park, Md Lines: 23 >>>Wouldn't it be easier to convince the Europeans to speak English? :-) >>Far easier would it be to get all Americans to speak Dutch... :-) > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >True. Look at what attempts to be English. :-) :-) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The really interesting thing is that it makes perfect sense to a literate American reader. (I know, roger, null set :-) One feels a sense of oddness while reading them, but the meaning is certainly clear enough. The first would be perfect American English if written in the negative: >>Wouldn't it be far easier to getThe second implies to me that the referent is actually alive and attempting to pass itself off somehow! This might be something like the English idiom "on a plane" giving foreign readers a mental picture of riding on the *outside* of the fuselage of the plane, or of asking for "the milk" to mean "give me all the milk in creation". Not to mention "Throw your father down the stairs his hat!" :-) -- Ben Cranston ...{seismo!umcp-cs,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben zben@umd2.ARPA