Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

Hello, my question refers to the topic. Is that an American idiom and if yes
what is its meaning? Merely a day without much luck?? BTW was the spelling
correct?
Thanks

Wasn't able to get the exact meaning of "to pip" in this context:
-----------
What had really smashed them up had been a perfectly common-place
affair at Monte Carlo--an affair with a cosmopolitan harpy who passed

Which is better?
"No drinking and eating"
"No drinking or eating"
"No drinking nor eating"

The last four digits of my credit card is or are?  Thanks.

¡°History tends to be the judge as to which is which.'
I read this in the BBC new today. How to understand this sentence please?
Palicularly the role of "as" .
Thank you very much.

"Yonst" is the word I am asking about.  It is quoted in F.L. Olmsted's, The
Cotton Kingdom.  A white southerner, possibly from Alabama, regarding the
idea freeing slaves says:
"Well, I'll tell you what I think on it; I'd like it if we could get rid of

In an article about the FCC and profanity:
During the January Golden Globes Awards broadcast on NBC, Bono -- frontman
for the Irish rock group U2 -- received an award and exclaimed, "This is
really, really [expletive] brilliant!" using the profanity frequently used

I'm selling a stack of my old books, and need to write up descriptions
of their conditions. Some of them have my name on the very first page,
the page that you would see if you ripped the cover off (but please
don't).

  These words are nouns when the last syllable rhymes with
"kit" and verbs when it rhymes with "kate".
o  Is there any learned but popular account of this
   phenomenon in English?

What is a "painted drainpipe"? In Dorothy Sayers' "Busman's Honeymoon"
there are a few references to one, in the sitting-room of a cottage. I
think of a drainpipe as strictly an outdoor item, but are there
decorative ones?

Could someone with a copy of the OED CD-ROM please be kind enough to cut,
paste and e-mail me a the dictionary's entry on the word, "be". I would be
eternally grateful for this good deed.
Thanks,

Can someone please explain to me what an insurance auction is? I'm
translating a text which mentions purchasing a vehicle from "a private
seller, dealership, insurance auction or online auction" in the US.
MTIA

I mean the vehicles like Regio-Shuttle
(http://www.dot.state.co.us/NFRTAFS/korve/karl_d~1/sld025.htm) or Alstom
(http://murowana.jdm.pl/komunikacja/szynobus/img/alstom.JPG). They are used
as local buses but use track bars of the railway system.

What does _throw a boxing match_ mean?
Can we say _throw a cricket match_?
Thanks a lot!
braininvat

Every once in a while, somebody responds to a newsgroup posting with a
mixture of labial consonants & open vowels, of which the subject
heading of this posting contains one example.  (Often, m's & p's get
mixed in as well as b's & w's.)  What sound, in the nonverbal world,