Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

Did The Yale Banger fizzle?
The first US national college fraternity (Greek) is usually said to be
Alpha Sigma Phi, stemming from a chapter at Yale founded in the 1840s.
That chapter had a rival, Kappa Sigma Theta, which was primarily a

I went to the Automatic Cash Dispenser today, to draw some money out of my
bank. There were three machines in a row, and the lady at the machine next
to mine was having trouble - the machine would not accept her transaction.
She asked me for advice, and I found myself saying:  "I ...

If there's vowel reduction with length reduction in all* languages, are
the schwas in English a function of the shortness of unstressed
syllables? That is, do ESL speakers' unstressed vowels automatically
become schwas as they learn to make unstressed syllables shorter or are

Does anyone else feel that upspeakers are conscious of their own
upspeak?
I notice Orlando Bloom is a habitual upspeaker, except in Pirates of
the Carribean and LotR and Kingdom of Heaven, in which he talks like he

According to Kate, If we don't make our spellings "phonics friendly" we
will eventually lose phonics entirely.
SB: Language continues to change so 200 years from now there will be
even fewer overlaps between the spoken and written word ...unless

"Zanks tu de zousan of sou ju folou.
Ai güan a moviman in debes of sibilideison an zanks tu oldou ju juad
dis güer tu esprindey ou no va indi guori (...).
Country, riligion, geminis, dis is aguar en an trein...

Hi. Recently in a book about Abe Lincoln, I saw the line: 'Did he
anticipate it,he would surely have done everything within his power to
avert it'. I thought that 'Had he anticipated it, he would surely have
done everything within his power to avert it' was the only way you

I actually have better things to do but came up with this:
Do remember back to what I said as a child. As I have been judged and
my innocence has been held against me wihtout advocation so will I
ignore the pleas of my false accusers and the healing they deny

I'd be interested to know more clearly when to use "write down" and
when "write out" esp in contexts related to writing music, but not only.
----
Creation apart, the writing of a symphony is physically arduous. Every

Any major differences you see between "drink up" and "drink off?"
We have both here. Do they both mean "finish drinking that particular
glass of whisky?"
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Last Revised 2006-07-31 (31 Jul 2006)
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Recently on USAmerican television and radio, I've noticed a number of
people pronouncing the word for your digestive innards "in-Tes-Tines,"
the last syllable pronounced like the "tines" of a fork and receiving a
smidgen of emphasis just like the middle syllable.

Hello usage.english,
I'm looking for a computer file which contains every word in the
english language, as well as their grammatical type (noun, adjective,
adverb, verb, etc..) and, if its a plural known, the original known

Media hasn't been the fourth pillar of democracy that it's expected
to be - for long.
an eyeopener article that discloses the truth behind  media's
monopoly...

At an event I attended yesterday, a speaker from the US referred to the
"wet sidewalks cause rain" theory. This expression was new to many
present, although the meaning was obvious. Ggling attributes this to one
Roger Blough who was head of US Steel in the 1960s but it's not ...