OT for Lia and other spellers

There's a locally produced commercial on tv here for a computer place and
the woman says "eggcetera."

Kathy
"nzlstar*" wrote in message
...
my pet peeves a
separate vs seperate...... eeeeeeek.
oh and to hear folks say ec cetera, not et cetera.
what do they think the etc means. : /
oh, oh and pacific for specific. omg.
bought for brought.
ok, i do write online 'tho' for though.
i'm just a bit lazy about that one.
i figure that one is an obvious abbreviation tho and really ought to be
correct.
dem for them is really irritating too or free for three.
maybe some of those are dialectic but boy they sure can be irritating.
not that i'm poifect, eh. )
jeanne
--
san-fran at ihug dot co dot nz
nzlstar on yahoo msg'r
http://community.webshots.com/user/nzlstar

I caught a rerun of 'The Weakest Link' the other day. In the final round I
heard the hostess ask 'how many 'R's in three days?". That is what I heard
her ask as well as the contestant, we both answered one....three days...one
R.
wrong, 72. eh? huh? what the.....?
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, hours.
I was in hysterics for a while on that one, lol.
I wish I'd taped that one to hear it again.
she does read those questions quickly. I don't think she reads them in
advance either as I've heard her make some amazing mispronunciations.
jeanne
any of my kids try axeing/axing (sp?) me and they're(nearly wrote that
'their', eeeeeeeek) in major trouble
--
san-fran at ihug dot co dot nz
nzlstar on yahoo msg'r
http://community.webshots.com/user/nzlstar
"Taria" wrote in message
news:4L%3f.1408$Yk6.1033@trnddc01...
Dh, from Kansas City always gripes about 'warsh'. That and
our/are.
Taria

Patti S wrote:

We had "Warshington Chickens" on the outdoor billboard at our
supermarket once......

Patti in Seattle

This off topic subject about regional pronounciation and the decline of
standards in spelling, grammar and punctuation comes up all the time on
usenet, and I enjoy it every single time. We never conclude anything,
but I love reading about all the little misunderstandings and varieties
in interpretation. Then last night when my sleep schedule was off, I
was up in the middle of the night flipping through channels and caught a
bit of a PBS special on exactly this topic. The host of the show was
traveling around North America interviewing people and getting opinions
on changes in written English, standard for newpaper publications, the
effect of hip-hop music on the English language. It was like History of
English but up to date and ever so interesting. Even after checking the
tv schedule, I don't know what it was called so I may have to ask for
help from my reference librarian to see if he knows and get the library
to get it for me. It must have been a re-broadcast since it wouldn't
have aired for the first time at that hour.


--Lia

Phyllis Nilsson wrote:
The grocery store had a sign up for fresh garlic, "39 cents a clove". I
did tell the clerk there were quite a few cloves in each head of garlic.
Don't know if he changed the sign.


And I've heard that what I call a clove is really a toe, and the whole
head is a clove.


My favorite supermarket story: It's bad enough when the produce guys
can't tell a zucchini from a cucumber, but this one was standing there
with a sticker gun labeling each cucumber with a bit of sticky plastic
that assured me that it was a vine ripened tomato. Hoping to catch him
in his mistake before he made quite a bit of work for himself, I pointed
to the cucumbers and gently said "uh, vine ripened tomatoes?" He got
all testy and said "look lady, I don't know if they're vine ripened or not!"


--Lia

The "n" was left out of the first name...could have strictly been a case
of nerves

Nann Hilyard wrote:

How does one misspell Benjamin Franklin?

Nann


"Carey N." wrote in message
news:%a_3f.1535$Lb1.618@trndny03...

And how about axed for asked?

Tonight on Jeopardy, one young contestant lost in the final round, for
misspelling Bejamin Franklin, because "the spelling affects the how it is
pronouced" per Alex Trebek. Too bad it cost her $10,000 to learn that
spelling counts!
--
Carey in MA

"nzlstar*" wrote in message
...

my pet peeves a
separate vs seperate...... eeeeeeek.
oh and to hear folks say ec cetera, not et cetera.
what do they think the etc means. : /
oh, oh and pacific for specific. omg.
bought for brought.
ok, i do write online 'tho' for though.
i'm just a bit lazy about that one.
i figure that one is an obvious abbreviation tho and really ought to be
correct.
dem for them is really irritating too or free for three.
maybe some of those are dialectic but boy they sure can be irritating.
not that i'm poifect, eh. )
jeanne
--
san-fran at ihug dot co dot nz
nzlstar on yahoo msg'r
http://community.webshots.com/user/nzlstar

"Mika" wrote...
snipped
One of my pet peeves though is when people misuse Then and Than.

grrrrr.

Ok

off my soap box. lol.

Mika
http://community.webshots.com/user/mikasdrms

My big pet peeve, mostly internet related, is when people discussing their
weight loss and say, "I'm loosing weight and now my pants are lose. "
That, and February. People seem unable to pronounce it as Fe-BRU-ary and not
Fe-BU-ary.
Deep breath, now.
Michelle


"Julia Altshuler" wrote in message
...
Phyllis Nilsson wrote:
The grocery store had a sign up for fresh garlic, "39 cents a clove". I
did tell the clerk there were quite a few cloves in each head of garlic.
Don't know if he changed the sign.


And I've heard that what I call a clove is really a toe, and the whole
head is a clove.


My favorite supermarket story: It's bad enough when the produce guys
can't tell a zucchini from a cucumber, but this one was standing there
with a sticker gun labeling each cucumber with a bit of sticky plastic
that assured me that it was a vine ripened tomato. Hoping to catch him in
his mistake before he made quite a bit of work for himself, I pointed to
the cucumbers and gently said "uh, vine ripened tomatoes?" He got all
testy and said "look lady, I don't know if they're vine ripened or not!"


--Lia

Here's a regional usage that I haven't seen discussed befo What's
the meaning of "couple"? Is it closer to two or few?


I grew up in Miami. "Couple" meant a vague small number. It be two,
but it could also be one or 3. Who's counting. A couple of candies
meant a small handful, smaller than a few, not a definite number.


I went to college in New Orleans. I was out of college and chatting
with a friend there from New Jersey. I don't remember how we got on the
subject, but he insisted that "couple" meant "two" as in a pair. He was
adamant that it couldn't mean anything else. When two people are
dating, they make a "couple," and anything else is kinky. We were
always getting into competitive discussions like this, and I normally
won the ones about words so I couldn't have been more surprised when I
got the dictionary and found that one of the definitions of "couple" was
"two items of the same kind; a pair." Boy do I hate it when I'm sure
I'm right then I'm not.


Fast forward 25 years. I work in a wine and cheese shop in New England.
The customer was buying a number of items that I was getting for her
and putting in a basket. She asked for a couple of packaged sausages
that were behind the counter. As I was reaching for them, I asked her
how many she'd like. She was a nice lady and so not truly perturbed,
but I thought I caught a touch of "what sort of idiot are you" in her
voice as she answered "two." (At that point I laughed and explained
that I'd only recently been coming to the conclusion that "couple" could
have a regional meaning; she understood. The conversation turned to
regionalisms, and I liked her more than ever.)


Later that week I was talking again with my friend who was visiting.
She's originally from Hattiesberg. We met in New Orleans. She's lived
up here where I do in the Northeast and now lives in London. Naturally,
we were talking about New Orleans and her family down South. All of a
sudden I asked her the meaning of "couple." She laughed and said "well,
that depends." The way I grew up it was an indiscriminate number, a
small one, but not definite, but up here (shrug) ..." And she let her
voice trail off.


It's the funniest thing. I don't have what you would call a Southern
accent, not from Miami. I adopted "y'all" and "all y'all only in New
Orleans. I understand when a casual acquaintance, male or female,
possibly a clerk in a store or a server in a restaurant, calls me
"sweetheart" or "doll" or "babe," but those words don't trip off my
tongue with any degree of ease. And yet somehow I got the Southern
definition of "couple" not the Northeastern one.


So here's the question: What does "couple" mean to you? Is it "a few"?
Or "two"?


--Lia

Couple=two, but that's just me.

--
Alice in NJ, Royal Cybrarian
http://www.ourcyberfamily.us/
"Just about the time a woman thinks her work is done, she becomes a
grandmother." Edward H. Dreschnack



"Julia Altshuler" wrote in message
...
: Here's a regional usage that I haven't seen discussed befo What's
: the meaning of "couple"? Is it closer to two or few?
:
:
: I grew up in Miami. "Couple" meant a vague small number. It be two,
: but it could also be one or 3. Who's counting. A couple of candies
: meant a small handful, smaller than a few, not a definite number.
:
:
: I went to college in New Orleans. I was out of college and chatting
: with a friend there from New Jersey. I don't remember how we got on the
: subject, but he insisted that "couple" meant "two" as in a pair. He was
: adamant that it couldn't mean anything else. When two people are
: dating, they make a "couple," and anything else is kinky. We were
: always getting into competitive discussions like this, and I normally
: won the ones about words so I couldn't have been more surprised when I
: got the dictionary and found that one of the definitions of "couple" was
: "two items of the same kind; a pair." Boy do I hate it when I'm sure
: I'm right then I'm not.
:
:
: Fast forward 25 years. I work in a wine and cheese shop in New England.
: The customer was buying a number of items that I was getting for her
: and putting in a basket. She asked for a couple of packaged sausages
: that were behind the counter. As I was reaching for them, I asked her
: how many she'd like. She was a nice lady and so not truly perturbed,
: but I thought I caught a touch of "what sort of idiot are you" in her
: voice as she answered "two." (At that point I laughed and explained
: that I'd only recently been coming to the conclusion that "couple" could
: have a regional meaning; she understood. The conversation turned to
: regionalisms, and I liked her more than ever.)
:
:
: Later that week I was talking again with my friend who was visiting.
: She's originally from Hattiesberg. We met in New Orleans. She's lived
: up here where I do in the Northeast and now lives in London. Naturally,
: we were talking about New Orleans and her family down South. All of a
: sudden I asked her the meaning of "couple." She laughed and said "well,
: that depends." The way I grew up it was an indiscriminate number, a
: small one, but not definite, but up here (shrug) ..." And she let her
: voice trail off.
:
:
: It's the funniest thing. I don't have what you would call a Southern
: accent, not from Miami. I adopted "y'all" and "all y'all only in New
: Orleans. I understand when a casual acquaintance, male or female,
: possibly a clerk in a store or a server in a restaurant, calls me
: "sweetheart" or "doll" or "babe," but those words don't trip off my
: tongue with any degree of ease. And yet somehow I got the Southern
: definition of "couple" not the Northeastern one.
:
:
: So here's the question: What does "couple" mean to you? Is it "a few"?
: Or "two"?
:
:
: --Lia
:

I have always known a couple to be 2 and a few to be 3 - ????

Dee in Oz

It may be a regional thing. If I say I have a couple of boxes on the back
porch or a couple of white sweatshirts, I mean a little number. While
you're here - are you aware of the woes of Loyola and Tulane? They just had
the stuffing beat out of them by Katrina. Polly

"Dee in Oz" wrote in message
oups.com...
I have always known a couple to be 2 and a few to be 3 - ????

Dee in Oz