Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bunnahabhain Date: 31 May 05 - 03:45 PM The name 'Puffin' has an English history. It orginally referred to the cured carcesses of nestling shearwaters, which were a higly prised delicacy until the late 18th century, birds being mainly collected on the Isles of Scilly and Man. 'puffin' is related to 'puffling' and is a referance to the fat young birds. The exchange of names seems to has arisen between shearwaters and puffins, which both nest in burrows. Puffin had taken its modern meaning by the late 19th century Fauna Britannica, Stefan Buczacki. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Jim Dixon Date: 31 May 05 - 03:09 PM When actors get together to read their lines for the first time...is it called a hearsal? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: The Shambles Date: 31 May 05 - 03:00 PM Why is Puffinus puffinus the latin scientific name for the Manx Shearwater - and not the Puffin? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST,Wesley S Date: 31 May 05 - 02:57 PM Before someone throws a fit - that's a line from "My Fair Lady". In high school I played Col Pickering. I should know. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: The Shambles Date: 31 May 05 - 02:42 PM Why can't a woman - be more like a man? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Peter Kasin Date: 30 May 05 - 03:48 PM HMS Pinafore, act II, and again in the finale. Chanteyranger |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bunnahabhain Date: 30 May 05 - 04:47 AM Which G+S is the one about Duty? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Peter Kasin Date: 30 May 05 - 04:41 AM Bunnahabhain - You reminded me of another imponderable: Why does the Dicky-bird sing 'tit willow, tit willow, tit willow'? Chanteyranger |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: John O'L Date: 29 May 05 - 08:35 PM I watched Billy Connolly's World Tour of New Zealand last night: A desert island, a shipwreck, 2 Scots, 2 Irish, 2 welsh and 2 English. After a year the 2 Scots had set up a distillery, the 2 Welsh had formed into a choir, the 2 Irish were fighting on the beach, and the 2 English were still waiting to be formally introduced. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST Date: 29 May 05 - 08:28 PM Is a fly without wings called a walk? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bunnahabhain Date: 29 May 05 - 08:23 PM innocuous From Latin innocuus : in-, not; + nocuus, harmful (from nocre, to harm). Anti british feeling? ALL. He is an Englishman! BOAT. He is an Englishman! For he himself has said it, And it's greatly to his credit, That he is an Englishman! ALL. That he is an Englishman! BOAT. For he might have been a Roosian, A French, or Turk, or Proosian, Or perhaps Itali-an! ALL. Or perhaps Itali-an! BOAT. But in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman! He remains an Englishman! ALL. For in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman! He remains an Englishman! |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST Date: 29 May 05 - 08:16 PM Yes but I pressed the submit button with real conviction....:) |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Alba Date: 29 May 05 - 08:14 PM You Rapscallion Guest...LOL.. but did you notice that we both posted at exactly then same time...spooky eh..:>) Don, I agree that the UK meaning for Bangs is a lot more fun that a haircut... Jude |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST Date: 29 May 05 - 08:07 PM Just because alba...:) |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 29 May 05 - 08:07 PM In the UK "bangs" are much more fun........... I seem to remember. Ahh! The joys of youth. Don T. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Alba Date: 29 May 05 - 08:06 PM aAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH guest>>why why why!!!!! rofl |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Alba Date: 29 May 05 - 08:05 PM That makes this 100...yeah.........lol First time folks so cut me some slack.. Thank you Jude |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST Date: 29 May 05 - 08:05 PM Why did ted miss the 100th? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Alba Date: 29 May 05 - 08:04 PM Good... In Glasgow you have Bottles of Ginger In Maine US you have Bottles of Soda and so..... |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Alba Date: 29 May 05 - 08:03 PM with me yeah? UK You have Pigtails US You have Braids with me.... |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Alba Date: 29 May 05 - 08:02 PM Now there is something I just have to do UK. You have a Fringe Us. You have Bangs Bear with me now please:>) |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Peter Kasin Date: 29 May 05 - 06:12 PM No problem, Don, thanks. I should have remembered before I posted that there is some anti-British sentiment in Mudville that shows up on occasion; sentiments I don't share. Chanteyranger ".....and the Hebrews learn it backwards which is absolutely frightening!" Hope MG doesn't react to that one. *BG* |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bill D Date: 28 May 05 - 09:38 PM I got it... I 'almost' posted "the Greeks have learned their Greek"...but couldn't think of a way to make it a clever remark... |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: John O'L Date: 28 May 05 - 09:14 PM Same in Oz. It's the cheap stuff than doesn't even get aired in the USA. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 28 May 05 - 08:24 PM Sorry Chanteyman, Kneejerk there. Seriously tho', it seems sometimes that the only TV fare available to kids over here is the stuff that's sold to UK TV because it's too bloody dumb for US kids. Don T. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST Date: 28 May 05 - 07:11 PM OK, 'My Fair Lady' is a 'musical'. That doesn't mean people on a music-related website are going to recognise a word out of one of the songs in it. But, sorry if you were disappointed. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST,Chanteyranger Date: 28 May 05 - 06:55 PM Actually, my post was not a serious question. I was hoping someone would have recognized it as the first line in Henry Higgins first song in "My Fair Lady." Chanteyranger |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 28 May 05 - 03:05 PM Because the poor little buggers grow up watching the imported TV programs (from the US), that massacre the language so effectively that no amount of education ever eradicates the result. Don T. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Peter Kasin Date: 28 May 05 - 01:40 AM Why can't the English teach their children how to speak? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Kim C Date: 27 May 05 - 02:21 PM Thank you. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bill D Date: 27 May 05 - 11:37 AM Just how much is a shit worth? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Kim C Date: 27 May 05 - 10:55 AM Just how much is a shit worth? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bob Bolton Date: 27 May 05 - 05:37 AM G'Day Bunnahabhain, My Shorter Oxford Dictionary says 1813 for flammable, but doesn't cite the actual phrase or author. (If I could afford the cost ... and space ... for a full Oxford, I might find out). Anyway, this is the sort of date at which scientists and administrators are beginning to take the language away from pedants and lawyers ... 'nuff said? Regards, Bob |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: The Shambles Date: 26 May 05 - 10:04 AM It is pretty obvious now that the patterns of the ocean currents are as complicated as the movement of the air above. Which is dependent on the other or are they both dependent on something else? Shall we allow this one to drift with the current whilst we ponder upon it? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST,Bunnahabhain Date: 26 May 05 - 08:47 AM It must be the Lagrange point. An object there can go in any direction, and so is clearly becoing inponderable, Are the periodic changes in the North Atlantic current caused by, or do they cause, Glaciations? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 25 May 05 - 10:37 PM I think "East Virginia" is what philologists call a "back formation". The mechanism of a back formation is that someone sees an expression with say a prefix or a modifier (in this case "West" in "West Virginia") and says to himself, "Well, if there's a West Virginia there must be an East Virginia," when actually it's not a symmetrical expression like that. "West Virginia" stands for that part of the old Virginia that was broken off at the time of "the late unpleasantness". Before that I suppose you'd say it was "Western Virginia", but the new state took the shorter form. But the Commonwealth of Virginia did not choose to change its name just because some upstarts wanted to side with the damnyankees, so it is still plain and unadorned "Virginia". Dave Oesterreich |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Mr Happy Date: 25 May 05 - 09:18 PM .........also the phenomenon of inappropriate apostrophe s's......... |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Mr Happy Date: 25 May 05 - 08:10 PM Why do foopball supporters shout loudly at the players on big screen telly in pubs? Our session tonight was ruined by a lot of prats in the other room yelling at the tops of their voices ' COME ON WHATSISNAME!' & other stuff. Do they think if they shout loudly enough, the men on screen can hear them? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 25 May 05 - 07:54 PM I don't believe anyone actually answered the West Virginia/East Virginia question. There was only one Virginia until just before the American Civil War. When Virginia decided to secede from the Union, the western part of the state, which did not want to secede from the Union, seceded from Virginia and became a new state. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: John O'L Date: 25 May 05 - 07:33 PM N by NE? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: The Shambles Date: 25 May 05 - 07:28 PM Zabriske point? Match Point? Boiling point? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: John O'L Date: 25 May 05 - 07:18 PM The onus of apology is on me. (Good sentence eh?) I neglected to consider the possible relevance of my post to those immediately preceding it. Anyway, At what point does something ponderable become imponderable? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bunnahabhain Date: 25 May 05 - 06:54 PM I didn't mean to sound defensive. It just came in as a reflex, as I'd been battling with dictionaries, and losing. I really do need to know how many centuries ago a word came into the language... Why do dancers pick up two new injuries for every one that heals? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST,Chanteyranger Date: 25 May 05 - 06:21 PM LOL on your 5:04am post, John O'Lennaine! Don't give up on us. Chanteyranger |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: The Shambles Date: 25 May 05 - 02:21 PM Perhaps posting - simply to make judgements being encouraged - is the cause of all the resulting defensive twitchyness? Or is that a judgement? Or is that a rhetorical question? Frankly my damn - I don't give a dear. Is that a Rhettorical statement or has it gone with the wind? I'll get you Butler! Was Clark Gable ever in 'On The Buses'? |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine Date: 25 May 05 - 05:27 AM Bunnahabhain - You missed my point. I wasn't having a go at you. See Bill D's post of 23 May 05 - 02:47 PM Once again I'm reduced to having to explain my wit. A sad thing. I should give up. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bunnahabhain Date: 25 May 05 - 05:12 AM Because cross-posting is easy, especially when you spend some time composing a message as you're trying to find word origins.... |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: John O'L Date: 25 May 05 - 05:04 AM Why do people make posts without checking if that post has already been made? Now THAT'S imponderable. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Bunnahabhain Date: 25 May 05 - 04:01 AM What is the difference between a hypothetical question and a rhetorical question? A rhetorical question is one you already know the answer to, (Is this laywer going to cost me alot of money?) whereas a hypothetical question is an impossible or meaningless one (what happened before time began?, what does yellow smell of? etc) BTW, if flammable is a made up word to avoid confusion over what inflammable means, it was done a long time before the current safety and lawsuits culture. Inflammable seems to be 14th C(Oxford etymological dictionary), flammable is harder to find, but I have a feeling it's not modern. |
Subject: RE: BS: Imponderables From: Peter Kasin Date: 25 May 05 - 03:31 AM Well, let's say we're for instance that we're asking a hypothetical question.....:-). A hypotheitical question has some sort of hypothesis at its core, so it's not important that the situation the question sets up is not an actual situation. It is there as an example to serve the hypothesis. A typical beginning to a hypothetical questions is: "Let's say for the sake of argument that...." A rhetorical question doesn't require an answer, and usually doesn't seek an answer. It's making a statement in the form of a question. I like this Jewish joke that illustrates a rhetorical question: A man walks by a shop with clocks and watches exibited in the window. He walks in and asks the shopkeeper at the counter if he could fix his watch. The shopkeeper say's, "I'm sorry, you're in the wrong place. I'm a Moyel. I perform circumcisions." The man say's, "Then why do you have all those clocks and watches in your window?" The Moyel say's, "So, what should I put in my window?" Chanteyranger |