Discussion Groups / English Usage / February 2004

Where is splitted the common form?

Can someone illuminate the difference between these two words
(outside of statistics anyway)?
My sense is that "variance" has more to do with the range
and "variation" individual changes within it.

since I'm generally interested in languages, I like listening to English
broadcast stations. Recently, I have noticed something that seems
a little bit strange to me as a native German.
Can anyone tell my why people say " ... that's <repeated phone number>"

Why is it that, in English, when we write a sentence of the form "My
name is __(name)__.", there are no quotes around the name?
Example sentences:
A: My name is Juuitchan.

... Ratboys, Kappa Slappers, Skangers, Janners, Stigs, Scallies, Sengas,
Pikeys, Gallus Weegies and a Generous Assortment of Neds.
The following websites define and illustrate various terms current in
modern British riffraffology:

http://alt-usage-english.org/ucle/ucle9.html :
"Anorak” comes from a Greenland Eskimo word for a type of jacket.  An
“Anorak” is characteristically made of waterproof materials and has a hood
attached.  In recent years, it has been adopted for other purposes, most

Following a spell check: I found that "arse" doesn't appear in the Word
dictionary. It suggested "a.s".
Cheers, Sage

Lately when I've absent-mindedly looked at a piece of spam e-mail
instead of tossing it unread as I usually do, I've seen several
interesting tricks that seem to be attempts to evade spam detection.
I'm using an old newsreader to handle e-mail, and it displays HTML as

I only checked one or two dictionaries, but they didn't have "again"
as a meaning of "back".
If I call b and b calls me, b has called back, in one of the listed
meanings of the word, "in return" or something.

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- Diana Ross was convicted Monday of driving under the
influence and ordered to spend two days in jail.
This sentence appeared on CNN.  Has the word "alcohol" been skipped here
deliberately, or is it a simple mistake which the editor didn't spot?

I heard a joke with 'lesser god' in it in a film and didn't get it...
I suppose it comes from the Bible but couldn't find much information
on the net. Is there an expression with these words? What/who do they
refer to?

There are about 20 tones of voice I've heard (mostly on ads) that are never
mentioned in books.
There is the "Everything is wonderful" tone of voice, usually used on ads to
refi your house.

Punctuation with the final quotation mark.-
Periods and commas should be put inside quotation marks(even though
the quotation marks enclose only one letter or figure); semicolons and
colons, outside.  Question marks and exclamation marks should be put

I'm sorry! I'm sorry already!
But i just encountered this on a National Geographic television
program on the subject of three-masted sailing vessels.
A tall ship has three yardarms per mast (true? weeelll...)

Can somebody help me find the quote that this paraphrase comes from. I am
translating and I can't find the original quote.
When Britain and its colonies switched from the Julian to the Gregorian
calendar in 1752 Benjamin Franklin, who was then 46, didn't think about