Conference thebay::joyoflex

    The term "[standing] on line" is one I associate with New York; I've
    only heard it from New Yorkers of various sorts.
    
    		*		*		*		*
    
    One way I've been able to spot non-native-English-speakers is by
    their non-standard choice of prepositions.  (This can be surprisingly
    relevant in the printing conferences.  "Are you using A4 paper?"
    is one of the basic questions.)
    
    							Ann B.

    Prepositions, verb tenses, idioms, etc., do not exactly map from
    language to language.  The cases which come rather close to matching
    seem to cause the most problems for some reason.
    
    Anyway, in Japanese, a device might be "in" or "cut."  (That's
    the setting of the power switch, not a status of working or not.
    Not working is "gone," in the sense of broken, as in "a part
    like that could go at any time.")
    
    In many languages, a device is "open" or "closed."  "Please open
    the light," yeah right, don't you know the vacuum will leak out?
    
    -- Norman Diamond

>    In many languages, a device is "open" or "closed."  "Please open
>    the light," yeah right, don't you know the vacuum will leak out?

My wife, born and raised a Massachussettsian (Burlington, Lexington, Bellerica)
says "open the light" and "shut the light".  I had never heard that usage before
I met her two years ago. 

??
-stephen

My wife (grew up in northern Vermont) says "behind OF".  It sounds odd to 
me, yet there is logic to it, because it is symmetrical with "ahead of".

Clay

    Do you mean 'behind of' in the context of, for example, "we cooked a steak
    cut from the behind of a cow"?
    
    Nothing wrong with this as a euphemism.
    
     
    Or is 'behind of' used as an adverb phrase?
    
    Which is not a phrase I have encountered.

     re: 1117.3  
     
     !! My grandmother ( arrived in the US from Italy in 1912 ) used the
        identical phrases of 'open/shut the light'. I had always thought
        it was her own interpretation of the Italian to English. 
     jc

    Re .4
    
    > "behind OF"
    
    An analog of this, one that grates every time I hear it, is "big of,"
    as in "It's not that big of a deal."  The "of" is patently wrong.  The
    sentence can be reformatted as "It's not a deal [that is] that big."
    Using the "of" makes "deal" semiotically into a possessive, which is
    clearly not intended.
    
    ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!  :-)
    
    -dick

Re .7

I don't understand why this is wrong. I would have reformatted the
sentence as "It's not a deal that is one of the big deals". Does your
note mean that it's incorrect to ask "What kind of car do you drive?" or
"What kind of a car do you drive?

But I'll bet my grater is bigger than your grater when I say "I should
of called her".

-stephen

>But I'll bet my grater is bigger than your grater when I say "I should
>of called her".
    
    Nothing wrong with "I should've called her."  It's only when it's
    typed as you have it above that it's incorrect.

    "Big of a deal" is much like "much of a muchness."
    
    (Drat!  My Alice books are at home!)
    
    					andrew

      <<< Note 1117.10 by OKFINE::KENAH "Do we have any peanut butter?" >>>

    "Big of a deal" is much like "much of a muchness."
    
    (Drat!  My Alice books are at home!)

>> Mine are at work :-)

    "They were learning to draw," the Dormouse
went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was
getting very sleepy; " and they drew all manner of
things--everything that begins with an M---"
    "Why with an M?" said Alice.
    "Why not?" said the March Hare.
    Alice was silent.
    The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time,
and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched
by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek,
and went on: "---that begins with an M, such as
mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and
muchness--you know you say things are 'much of a
muchness'--did you ever see such a thing as drawing
of a muchness!"
   "Realy, now you ask me," said Alice, very much
confused, "I don't think---"
    "Then you shouldn't talk," said the Hatter.

re .3 by Tinius:

> My wife, born and raised a Massachussettsian (Burlington, Lexington,
> Billerica) says "open the light" and "shut the light".  I had never
> heard that usage before I met her two years ago. 

     From the days of gas lamps, perhaps?

re .4 by Binder:

>    An analog of this, one that grates every time I hear it, is "big of,"
>    as in "It's not that big of a deal."

     Geez, didja hafta go 'n make such a big deal of it?:-)

re .10 by Kenah:

     I'd say "big of a deal" and "much of a muchness" are 2 of a kind.

re Alice:

     A little help from the Jumpstation (searching 

	http://www.stir.ac.uk/jsbin/js?search

for Gutenberg) yields:

	ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/gutenberg/etext91/alice29.txt
	ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/gutenberg/etext91/snark12.txt
	ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/gutenberg/etext91/glass16.txt

(what I've told you 3 times is true)

>    Do you mean 'behind of' in the context of, for example, "we cooked a 
>steak cut from the behind of a cow"?

If I thought you were serious, I would complain that "behind of" in that 
context is rare indeed, but since the title of your reply is a smiley face, I 
will congratulate you on a well-done play on words.

Clay

    I thought it was a rare, rather than a well-done, play on words...
    

    Or a weird play on rears...

RE: .2

>    In many languages, a device is "open" or "closed."  "Please open
>    the light," yeah right, don't you know the vacuum will leak out?

     Will the vacuum will leak out or will the air leak in?  Where does
     a vacuum go if it escapes?

     ---Phil

    	There's an awful lot of vacuum out there, and it's already got to
    the ozone layer. It's creeping in on you!

>     Will the vacuum will leak out or will the air leak in?  Where does
>     a vacuum go if it escapes?

Same place the darkness goes when you turn on the light.

Clay

    G'day,
    
    Ahh my son has a theory about lights... They are actually darkness
    vacuums... they suck in the darkons, leaving the photons to glow. The
    darkons travel back along the wires to appear outside power stations as
    heaps of a black substance that is then buried in big holes in the
    ground...
    
    Similarly, cut open a battery and you wil find it full of a black
    substance.....
    
    
    Darkness occurs only when darkons exceed photons!
    
    
    derek

If you find a negative-ten-dollar bill in the street then are you required
to pick it up?

Chuck