[TAG] English->American dictionary

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Predrag Ivanovic (predivan at ptt.yu):

> If native English speakers can't decide how to spell,what the fsck the
> rest of us are supposed to do?

Join our suffering.  ;->

Voltaire is said to have suffered quite nicely, while trying
unsuccessfully to become fluent in English, and finally exclaimed in
frustration, "May the plague take half the English language, and the
ague take the other half!"

(At the risk of killing that joke:  The two words are pronounced very
differently, even though they're spelled nearly the same.)

> Hm.It's en-US.So,that's why Aspell spelling seems a bit odd to me at times.
> My English teachers preferred Commonwealth version,apparently.

I appeased my USA teachers by telling them I'd solemnly swear to stick
to dictionary-correct spelling.  (It's not my fault they didn't ask
which dictionary.  I had in mind the _Compact OED_.)
 
> Thank you,Rick Moen!
> Now,I officially request that:
> 1.you get knighthood(Sir Rick Moen <g>)
> 2.day consists of at least 36 hours instead of rather pathetic 24.
> 
> There goes my 6 hour sleep....must read... 

Well, you have too much blood in your caffeine system, already.

BTW, it's firm tradition (though not law, despite popular misconceptions 
on this point) for 'Murricans to decline titles of nobility, so to 
be gracious about this the UK grants only _honorary_ knighthoods to
Yanks, e.g., recently to Gen. Schwartzkopf.  

> I thought that "{American,Russian,whatever} Cultural Attache" was
> doublespeak for spook.  Or so I've heard...

I think it _often_ is.  That's a traditional silent addendum to the way
the Westphalian System's game gets played (the system of nations being
"recognised", having extraterritorial embassies, and being able to 
carry out certain forms of mass violence but not others, that was
imposed by the Congress of Vienna as a reaction to the French
Revolution).

> "Cheers" I know,but "The Golden girls"?WTF?

{shrug}  It's not as if I ever watched _any_ of those things.
 
> I had a rather heated argument few years ago about that Harry Potter
> book.  Apparently,she thought(without actually reading)that book is
> about witchcraft and black magic,much of that "opinion" based on name
> of it("It's called '...and Sorcerer's stone',Sorcerers are
> bad(anti-Orthodox),so it *must* be satanic.And there is magic in
> it.And Latin.I don't understand it.Burn it,burn it!").  I had to
> restrain from beating her to the ground with hardcover edition of
> "Satanic verses".

Both the United States and the United Kingdom have a certain number of
analogous people.  Mocking them doesn't seem to make much of an impression.

[Regarding "Harry Potter" books being Americanised^wAmericanized:]

> And on the cover is "translated from British" sign?

Never.  Which is a bit vexing.

> First thing I noticed is that you write exceptionally well,content and
> style wise <g>.

Oh, you're welcome to flatter me, any time.

> No such thing as "off topic" here <g>.   

Well, I'd personally like to apply the rule of thumb that was
traditional on a number of mailing lists of my acquaintance.  Off-topic
digressions are welcome to the extent that they're some combination of:

o brief
o amusing
o non-annoying
o infrequent

> You grew up in Hong Kong,right?
 
So I claim.  My mother says she's still waiting.

Honestly, I wasn't in the Mid-Levels, Victoria, Hong Kong, Royal Crown
Colony for very many years, but they were vitally important years, early
in my life -- and some very unfortunate things happened to my family
immediately after that, such that I hold tightly onto that preceding
existence despite passage of decades, as a cornerstone of identity,
nonetheless.  Long story, not worth detailing.

Heraclitus:  "You cannot step into the same stream twice."  Yet, most of
us cling to the illusion we're the in some fundamental sense the same
people we were at age ten.  I certainly do -- for slowly mutating values 
of "I".

-- 
Cheers,                              "Open your present...."
Rick Moen                            "No, you open your present...."
rick at linuxmafia.com                  Kaczinski Christmas.
               --  Unabomber Haiku Contest, CyberLaw mailing list