Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/06/13

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Subject: [Leica] Re: talking talking talking
From: Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 17:21:00 -0700

Isn't it funny that we can run up the bill for those hourly Internet folks
talking about that not talking about Leica runs up their bill.

And while we are talking about not talking about Leica, we can talk about
the structure of the English language. As if the "world wide" LUG is at all
interested.

But it simply shows you that there are human beings collected here, and
there is no way in hell that such a diverse, eclectic group, of lovers of
Leica, pens, watches, cars, language, art, politics, and on and on and
on..., are going to not divert into passionate knowledge areas. No way!

So let's all do what we are going to do anyway... just keep on talking.

Remember, the delete key is free.

Jim


At 11:19 AM 6/13/99 -0700, you wrote:
>>At 10:06 AM 6/13/99 -0700, Guy Bennett wrote:
>>>
>>>did you hear ['you all' could be seen as having a slightly pejorative
>>>resonance in this context]
>>
>>Excuse me?  "Y'all" is the Southern English dialect second person plural
>>pronoun.  Until early modern times, English used "you" for second person
>>plural (more than one) and "thee" for second person singular (one).
>>"Thee", "thy", and "thine" fell out of use in the 1600's, though most of us
>>still understand the useage.  American southerners, being a cut above in
>>linguistic precision, began using "y'all" to separate plural and singular.
>>
>>Perfectly good English and hardly perjorative in any sense.
>>
>>Marc
>
>
>marc,
>
>this may be true in the south(east), but is not in the southwest, where i
>live, nor, i suspect, in other parts of the country where it may well have,
>as it does here, distinctly regional overtones that are of the type hunted
>out by the pc police (of whom my post was intended to be a mild parody) as
>bearing potential regional/racial/socio-economic stereotypes. many of my
>relatives, italian immigrants having lived in new york and new jersey
>before coming to the west coast, said 'youse' (and frequently added 'guys'
>in much the same way that i've heard the appended 'y'all two', for example)
>for second person plural, and though this was certainly standard for them
>and the others living in similar immigrant communities (i can't attest to
>its usage outside of such communities), it certainly smacks of east-coast,
>1930s mobster-type english to my latter-20th century west coast ears (hope
>i'm not offending any of youse guys out there, if so, my apologies). this
>may well be the result of my limited knowledge of english dialect usage,
>though i suspect it is more an issue of the possibly unconscious media
>conditionning we receive with respect to english usages of all types, many
>of which, like it or not, have come to be stereotypically associated - and
>not necessarily with the appropriate connotations, but then again, this is
>the nature of stereotypes - with certain segments of the population.
>
>guy
>