As I was telling Rudi, the first axiom of economics is such: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. (Actually, I think Robert Heinlein said it first in _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_.)

Rudi -

Ye take but doth not give????


Other than GRUEZI and perhaps MMmmmm Swiss Chocolate (and I tend to doubt that second one is Swiss-German) you have been derelict in teaching us of your tounge.

Please regale us with colorful idioms and colloquialisms from Zurich, Wengen, etc.

(and include translations)

Rudi, you English is fine to me and in fact is even more impressive by my Jerzee tainted English (sometimes I slip in my writing and no one can make sense of what it's about.)

I should take english lessons from you and from James (who I want to convince to get me to come to London now that I know him and Nick Merry over there to keep me company!)

ALthough knowing feline helps!

Same here... American English may be my mother tongue (actually a sort of corrupted Noo Yawk accent (gedouddahere, fuhgeddaboudit, youse guys) with a few Texanisms thrown in for good measure (y'all, fixin' to get, over yonder), but I am also fluent in Spanish (the Venezuelan dialect, not the Mexican, which I have a hard time understanding) and with it I can understand French, Italian and Portuguese, along with a smattering of German I picked up while in overseas militaty service.

Whenever I post, I try my best to keep it in straightforward English with a minimum of acronyms and abbreviations. When I do use them, I'll at least explain them in (parentheses).

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AlphaSigOU
Causa latet vis est notissima - the cause is hidden, the results are well-known.

Alpha Sig OU... glad to see you back!!! Hope all is well and maybe you'll make Mr. Lion's San Antoine duuu (talkin' Texan again you all!)

I have the same problem Rudi - from my American wife, from picking things up here and from writing articles in 'American-English'. I now really struggle when I have to write something in British-English.... but I try to use it here.

Keep up the struggle for your Oxford English Rudi - we are losing the battle

PS Doc - did you mean King's English?

[This message has been edited by james (edited 07-25-2000).]

Indeed!

How about we start a discussion on the proper usage of "y'all" in various dialects of American English?

For instance, is the plural of "y'all":

"y'all"
"y'allses"
"all y'all"?

Rudi
I don't believe that most people even realize when they are saying/posting things that are not easily translated.

Do you remember when I posted that I looked forward to seeing you again.

'Y'all' is not used in my part of the world, but I did have it explained to me by a linguist once. Apparently, after the second person singular (thou) fell out of general use (second person plural [you] stepping in to do double duty), there were those who felt the need to distinguish between 'you' singular and 'you' plural. When this dialectical quirk first reared it's ugly head (if y'all will excuse the editorial slant ), 'you' was used when addressing one person - i.e. Catman, you are an exeptional person; whereas 'y'all'(you+all) was used when addressing several persons - i.e. "hope y'all had a good time at the FAQ last weekend (or 'week-end' as james and Rudi would have it)." Whether or not this grammer still applies, I'll leave it to some of you southerners to respond.

Similarly, in my town there are stil a few old west-siders who use the term 'youse.' This is the same phenomenom - different location:


-"You. Go help your brother!"

-"But he's already finnished"

-"Good, then the two of youse get ready for supper

AlphaSig:

Texanisms with a New York accent?

I'm trying imagine how awful

"Y'all fuhgeddaboudit" said in a New York accent would sound

Previously posted in:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/001082.html

For those that don't want to read that whole thread, the pertinent points are:

"Ya'll" is singular, "All ya'll" is plural, and "All y'all's" is plural possessive.

Cheers,

'toad

Mmmm... interesting thread. Brings me back to my not so far college days (BA in Lit. and Linguistics, M.A. in Applied Ling., but that's for another thread). So, Hammertoad, you say y'all is now singular, eh? I take your word for it, although I've never heard "all y'all" (no reason I should have; I've never really spent any time where it would be used - except perhaps for changing planes at DFW).

There's another form, very common on the left coast (and perhaps elsewhere in the U.S. too, not sure), corresponding to the former "y'all" and the current "all y'all": that's "you guys". This expression is definitely the equivalent of "you" plural, and I've heard it used to address mixed gender groups, as well as groups of females.
Ok, I'll stop here before I get too technical or OMNI.

I personally find it fascinating how living languages are constantly changing (this is my editorial slant).

[This message has been edited by honu (edited 07-25-2000).]

I always thought the plural was
Y'all all

Probably he meant Queen's English. England hasn't had a king since 1952 .



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"Ex Uno Plures"