Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

Listening to a Bluegrass performer accept an award and bid the
audience farewell with "God bless" reminded me that in olden days folk
tended to use "God bless you" instead under similar circumstances.  
Wondering when the change occurred, and more importantly, why?  My

Hey, Robin -- did you know you've been quoted in a sig line?
This is from John Flynn, in alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe:
johnF
"Most of my parts are around here somewhere, but I guess they won't be

I've got an "Oxford Practice Grammar" by John Eastwood.
Not sure now which parts of the book to concentrate on
after a starting test.
I'd really appreciate if someone has answers or keys

I saw one about 8 years ago that would take a physician's medical
report and paraphrase it to the point the insurance companies did not
know it was a boiler-plated letter. It worked on business letters,
too. I lost track of the developer and could now make use of this type

From May of 2000:
"In a move that is sure to have his political advisers gulping
Pepto-Bismol for the next several months, George W. Bush has floated the
outlines of a proposal that would allow individuals to invest up to two

The (Newark NJ) Star Ledger today has a nice piece on Google, especially
explaining some of the shortcut qualifiers one may use (such as "site:" and
"filetype:") and listing other not-well-known features (such as "define:"
for word definitions) and so forth.

Stabbed someone with a sharpie.
Heard on the news tonight.  www.dictionary.com gives 2 entries but
they're about boats or clever people.
It's obviously used here as some sort of knife, but what sort?  And is

I was just curious on why certain Acronyms have their letters shuffled when
the order of the words in their corresponding expansion is different.
For ex, MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) or
       PhD  (Doctor of Philosophy)

I would like to ask an native speaker  which  of the following
sentencies is the correct one?
1) My car is not so fast as yours     ---    My car is not as fast as
yours

Today Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, John Anderson asserted that
teaching of sustainable development in state schools was
'anti-farmer'.
Tasmanian Senator Bob Brown (Greens) responded that this was not so,

Could someone please help with a 'me' and 'I' query. I realize 'me' is
the object and 'I' is the subject, but which of these is correct:
She earns more than I
She earns more than me

"Americana" typically means collectible items from United States,
usually things unique to the US, that are significantly historic or
artistic in an American way. The word is common in the UK, but is it
familiar in the US?

I am wondering when to choose which in the following sentence and would like
to ask questions regarding it.
"Until recently there (was|has been|had been) only one drug for the disease."
First, are all the candidates possible? I have seen the present perfect tense

What is the difference between the two:
I'm glad that you're here.
I'm glad you're here.
Are they interchangeable or do they imply something different?

Have you noticed that soon after a couple separates, both or at least
one of them starts referring to what had been called "our children" as
"my children"?  They used to be "our children", "our son", "our
daughter" even when the other parent was not present.