Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

Can chatting up birds lead to nesting?

This just in:
Apple Computer reported today that it has developed computer chips that can
store and play music inside women's breasts. This is considered to be a
major breakthrough because women are always complaining about men staring at

Is it just me? When I go to the reinstated Mastertexts site to use the
search facility
( http://www.mastertexts.com/index.php?PageName=Search ) I find the page
distorted - the search box is w-a-a-a-y over to the right.

When Bo Schembechler, long time coach of the University of Michigan
football team, died this past Friday, an AP story was presented (in some
Saturday newspapers) about him.
The full article is at

On this evening's news, I heard a woman, Robin Raskin (a "new media
consultant"), use the term "second life" in connection with the
hope-to-be purchasers of the new PlayStation (PS3).
Is this term out there a lot these days in reference to people who spend

I'm glad to see that our group has such vast influence on the general
public and publishers in particular.
OJ Simpson's "If I Did It" has now been recalled after many complained
the title was an incomplete conditional sentence and that it required

anyone knows what's the meaning of 'wishie washie' ?? I guess the
context is used to refer to certain people's behaviors in
conversational english, but I have no idea what's the meaning.
Please advice. thanks...

GONE PHISHING
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucjk/20061113/cm_ucjk/gonephishing
Opinion
James J. Kilpatrick

For some time already I'm trying to identify the word in English that
would correctly express the idea of the "*period of a contract".
Imagine such a clause of a contract:
"The X of the contract is 2 years".

Any reason for preferring "want" vs. "wish" in
"[he] did not especially want to go into?"
Would your interpretation of each of them be different in this
context?

RE:    Bonjour! Reciprocol Fr & Eng lessons w/ native spkrs, pro bono
- Teach French-speakers English..while learning French
- Enseignez le francais aux anglophones en apprendant l'anglais
PROJET PILOTE <> EXPERIMENTAL PROJECT

What could this "seventeen-hand chestnuts" mean?
Is this a horse/hunting party with 17 horses?
Mr. van der Luyden is an avid hunter, but he seems to hunt in
Virginia, not in the NYC.

Does  the term "beaver" for female genitalia derive from its sense as a
"beard"? The OED shows this meaning for "beaver" emerging in the early
20th century. Also, does anyone know who was the first person to use it
in the genital sense. Someone suggested that Kurt Vonnegut was the

Is it correct to refer to two twin siblings as "a pair of twins"? Or
would a pair of twins number four people?
TIA,
Oliver White

I read and write contracts for a living.  Contract language is some of the
worst writing one is likely to find in English.  However, it is usually
striving to avoid any ambiguity or redundancy.   This is not an easy task.
It is common to see the phrase "any and all" as in "The ...