philnic,
Agreed anent misusage.
In fact, the "i.e." in rm-r's post SHOULD be "e.g."
Q.E.D!

By the way, where in the UK are you? My wife's Mancunian, if you know what that means.

[This message has been edited by Braling II (edited 07-22-2004).]

Aha! Well spotted. (Of course if rmr had used "and" instead of "or", s/he might have got away with it.)

Not many Mancunians round here: I'm near Birmingham, where the locals call themselves Brummies. But I come from Portsmouth, which the locals call Pompey. Strange people, us Brits.

- Phil

So I get points for using a regionally antiquated Latin term, and lose points for using the incorrect one? *wink*

But seriously, thanks for clearing that up for me.

My family and friends will agree I have the "Gift of Correction". Actually, I love the English language BECAUSE it's come from so many others. One could say that in one page of English can be found the history of Man. It's also why I love writers like Bradbury, Poe, and others who can use this language so well - cmbining words like a master chef combining ingredients for a banquet. (Continuing the analogy, there's a lot of literary "fast food" these days!)
Re: the Brits; I love England and Wales. In England, (in my opinion) the farther north one goes; the friendlier the people, the harder it is to understand what they're saying, and the better the beer!
By the way, aren't Eric Burdon and the Animals Brummies?

Braling,
That sounds like me! "The gift of correction," that is! Seems like I can always spot grammatical and spelling errors in others' works, although it's a bit harder for me to find my own errors (although, I do know when I've made an error - I just don't always know, exactly, WHAT it may be!). I consider that part of my anal retentiveness - which is a good thing in my job, but not always good elsewhere, as evidenced by the friends and family I drive bananas!

1989
Indiana

Braling II,

I think Eric Burdon and the Animals are/were Geordies (from Newcastle or the north-east of England). If you want famous Brummies, I can only think of Ozzy Osbourne. And Jeff Lynne of ELO. And the actress Julie Walters.

- Phil

Thanx.
Me wife says you're right.
'Course she remembers Pete Noone and the Hermits playing for dances in Stretford.
I've been to Northumberland - the Geordie accent is one of the most impenetrable.
Decent beer, though!
We do digress.
Glad there's a Brit Bradbury Aficianado aboard!

"And now the odd thing was that no one could remember anyone's having wished for anything that morning. The wish about the Red Indians had not stuck in anyone's head. It was a most anxious morning. Everyone was trying to remember what had been wished for, and no one could, and everyone kept expecting something awful to happen every minute. It was most agitating; they knew, from what the Psammead had said, that they must have wished for something more than usually undesirable, and they spent several hours in most agonizing uncertainty. It was not till nearly dinner-time that
Jane tumbled over The Last of the Mohicans - which had, of course, been left face downwards on the floor - and when Anthea had picked her and the book up she suddenly said, 'I know!' and sat down flat on the carpet.

'Oh, Pu$sy, how awful! It was Indians he wished for - Cyril - at breakfast, don't you remember? He said, "I wish there were Red Indians in England," - and now there are, and they're going about scalping people all over the country, like as not.'

'Perhaps they're only in Northumberland and Durham,' said Jane soothingly. It was almost impossible to believe that it could really hurt people much to be scalped so far away as that."

From "Five Children and It," by E. Nesbit.

Simply couldn't resist posting this, as it's an alltime favorite--which, yes, I've read more often than any work of Bradbury's--and am now finally reading Cooper's works for myself. Also, I find myself quoting this particular passage a lot, about how it couldn't hurt so far away as that.

"Pu$sy" was the children's nickname for Jane. It was judged too obscene for the movie version, where it was rendered as "Pu$s-�at," and of course, the incident with the "Red Indians" was left out entirely. Very good adaptation otherwise.

I suppose "dinner" here is what we in America would call lunch. Because actual "dinner," that is, "supper," wouldn't be till probably around 6:00 in the evening, and the wishes ended at sunset, leaving not much time.

A great line; probably explains a lot of wars and foreign policies!

"Dinner" can mean lunch (if you are working class) or evening meal (only if you are posh, or have aspirations or pretensions to being posh). But "dinner-time", I suspect (based on my own usage and that of those around me), can only mean lunch-time.

- Phil

Yer right there, mate.
For the edification of the Yanks out there, the evening meal is often referred to as "tea".

But don't they have tea on a regular basis? 11:00 a.m., and of course at 4:00 p.m. everything stops for tea! Ray Bradbury recalled drinking tea with Aldous Huxley. He said he really hated tea, but when you're sitting at a table with Aldous Huxley, you pretend to like tea--of course, he said it much cuter than that.

'Tis true that the beverage is consumed frequently at somewhat regular intervals. In fact my wife recalls the road workers knocking on the door in the afternoon with a kettle and asking for boiling water so they could brew up! (The average Brit, I'm informed, consumes about a pound of tea per month.) Perhaps because the evening meal is followed by a cuppa tea, "tea" became the name of the meal - at least in the Northern parts of England.
If we really want to digress, I could go on about other Anglicisms, such as "taking the Mickey", "sussing it out", rhyming slang, etc.
As G.B.Shaw (whose birthday it is today!) said, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language"!

Not too break off a tangent but I was born in 1968 and am an Air Force brat, spending 2 1/2 years in the UK as a matter of fact, at Upper Heyford. Love Bradbury obviously so I'm not sure why anyone would say you had to be born between the 20's and 40's to dig him. Shakespeare, Dickens, Twain are also rooted in their own time and place. I mean, shit, is there a writer who isn't?

Well, I eat supper, except on Sundays, when it becomes dinner. Of course, we'd eat Sunday dinner around 1 pm (noon during NFL season!), so I suppose that's really lunch, but we wouldn't have another meal after that. I pretty much use both terms interchangably. My friends say I'm strange and who am I to argue?!