Don Livingston (Graduate Student)
4500 Whitman Ave. North #2 Dept. Slav. Lang. & Lit., DP-32
Seattle, WA 98103 University of Washington
Phone/Fax (206) 634-1539 Seattle, WA 98195
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1993 19:35:54 CST
From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL%MIZZOU1.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Canadian Fed Tax Refund
For all ADS members who will be in Toronto. I'm forwarding pertinent info
from Ed Lawson, Prog Chair for ANS.
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Refund for Visitors
Visitors to Canada may claim a refund of the 7% GST (Goods &
Services Tax) on leaving Canada. What you do is keep receipts
for lodging and goods purchased. The total has to be over $100.
You take the receipts to a desk in a duty free shop where an
immediate cash refund in given (in Canadian dollars). The
receipts are returned immediately. Meals do not count, nor does
transportation.
Note: this refund applies only to the federal tax, not to the
Ontario provincial tax.
Ed Lawson Psych SUNY-Fredonia NY 14063 (LAWSON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FREDONIA)
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 15:45:47 RSA
From: "m. lynne murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA
Subject: 3 inches short
hello,
i've been told that the acceptability of sentence (1) below is regionally-
determined. i'd like to get a sense of where in the u.s. (or even outside
the u.s.) one can say the following:
(1) The tablecloth is three inches short. (meaning there are three inches
of the table that the cloth fails to cover)
(2) The tablecloth is three inches short of the mark.
(3) The tablecloth is three inches too short. (universally accepted, right?)
If sentence (1) is ok with you, can you also say:
(4) The package is 7 ounces heavy (and thus can't be shipped via UPS).
(5) The baby's bottle is 10 degrees warm (so you'd better cool it off
a bit before giving it to her).
Is there anyone for whom (4) and (5) could mean that the weight of the
package equals 7 ounces or the temperature of the baby's bottle equals
10 degrees?
I'd appreciate judgments on these things from anyone and everyone.
Please indicate what area you're from or what dialect you consider
yourself to speak. Replies can be posted to me privately if you like.
Thanks in advance,
Lynne Murphy
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]witsvma.wits.ac.za
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 16:02:58 RSA
From: "m. lynne murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA
Subject: addendum to 3" short
ach, i forgot an important question in the last message.
Can everyone say (a) and (b)?
(a) I was 10 minutes early for class.
(b) I was 10 minutes late for class.
thanks again for your time.
lynne murphy
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 09:26:01 -0500
From: "J. Chambers" chambers[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPAS.UTORONTO.CA
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
My inland urban middle-class Canadian English usage apparently matches
Lynne Murphy's. I can say
The tablecloth is 3" short
meaning it is too short to cover the whole table--3" remain uncovered.
But I can't say
The tablecloth is 3" long
meaning it is that much too long. I have to say it's 3" too long. And
I can't ordinarily say that the package is 7 oz heavy, meaning that
much too heavy for UPS, and I certainly can't say the baby bottle is
10 degrees warm, meaning that much too warm. This last sentence more
probably would be
The baby bottle is 10 degrees hot
but it doesn't help. It still can't mean that it's that much too hot.
So "short" appears to be a curiosity. I wonder if it's because "short"
is the marked member whereas "long" is the unmarked one, in Eve
Clark's terms. If so, then it should be o.k. to say
The doorstopper is thin
meaning it's too thin to hold the door open, the door slips right over
it, but no good to say
The doorstopper is thick
meaning it's too big to wedge under the door.To me, they sound equally
unlikely. --Jack Chambers
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 17:07:53 RSA
From: lynne murphy 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
thanks for your response to my query.
lynne murphy
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 10:25:14 CST
From: Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
(1) The tablecloth is three inches short. (meaning there are three inches
of the table that the cloth fails to cover)
Yes.
(2) The tablecloth is three inches short of the mark.
No, unless there is a mark on the table -- but that is highly
contextualized.
(3) The tablecloth is three inches too short. (universally accepted, right?)
Yes.
If sentence (1) is ok with you, can you also say:
(4) The package is 7 ounces heavy (and thus can't be shipped via UPS).
No
(5) The baby's bottle is 10 degrees warm (so you'd better cool it off
a bit before giving it to her).
No.
Is there anyone for whom (4) and (5) could mean that the weight of the
package equals 7 ounces or the temperature of the baby's bottle equals
10 degrees?
But I can say, "The baby has a temperature" (=fever) and my mother
-in-law can say, "Dennis has cholesterol" (= high cholesterol). She's
from Chicago. I'm from NY.
So, M. Lynne, what else is new?
Dennis
--
debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392
\'\ fax: 217-333-4321
Dennis Baron \'\ ____________
Department of English / '| ()___________)
University of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \
608 South Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \
Urbana, IL 61801 ==). \ __________\
(__) ()___________)
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 10:40:41 EST
From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
I'm also in the dialect group that gets 3 inches short (= 'too short for X')
but none of the other adjectives. Of course, '3 inches long' is pre-empted by
its ordinary measure-term use from meaning '...too long', but why don't we get
'3 inches narrow', '2 feet small', etc.? My colleague Caroline Heycock (who
is from Scotland, but shares the dialect feature) suggests a relationship to
expressions like 'I'm 5 cents short' (where again, X short = 'short by X
amount'), and we also get e.g. We're two {players/screws/knives/...} short.
In these cases, the 'too short for' paraphrase doesn't work, but 'short by'
does.
Notice too that I think everyone can get the 'too X' reading with adverbs like
'a bit', 'a little' modifying the measure adjective: a bit tall/short/green,
etc. all can be interprested as 'a bit TOO adj (for...)'. I'd assume this is
a general pragmatic process, though.
Larry Horn
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 10:50:00 EST
From: Mark Ingram MAINGR01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UKCC.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
On Mon, 8 Nov 1993 15:45:47 RSA m. lynne murphy said:
hello,
i've been told that the acceptability of sentence (1) below is regionally-
determined. i'd like to get a sense of where in the u.s. (or even outside
the u.s.) one can say the following:
(1) The tablecloth is three inches short. (meaning there are three inches
of the table that the cloth fails to cover)
This sounds just fine. I understand completely and do not find it confusing.
(2) The tablecloth is three inches short of the mark.
This is more precise.
(3) The tablecloth is three inches too short. (universally accepted, right?)
This is also more precise.
If sentence (1) is ok with you, can you also say:
(4) The package is 7 ounces heavy (and thus can't be shipped via UPS).
(5) The baby's bottle is 10 degrees warm (so you'd better cool it off
a bit before giving it to her).
Is there anyone for whom (4) and (5) could mean that the weight of the
package equals 7 ounces or the temperature of the baby's bottle equals
10 degrees?
#4 and #5 are confusing. Is the package 7 oz too heavy? I think I need to
hear the word TOO in there. Same with a bottle 10 degrees TOO hot.
I'd appreciate judgments on these things from anyone and everyone.
Please indicate what area you're from or what dialect you consider
yourself to speak. Replies can be posted to me privately if you like.
I grew up in the rural area just outside Louisville, Ky. We moved into
the suburbs of Louisville in the late 50s. I attended Catholic schools there.
I speak a regional standard. Some Kentuckians think I don't come from around
here. People from other states sometimes fail to place the accent. That is
a relatively common response to the speech patterns of someone from the
East end of Louisville.
Mark Ingram
Lexington, Ky.
Thanks in advance,
Lynne Murphy
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]witsvma.wits.ac.za
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 10:37:44 -0600
From: Anita Henderson HEND%UKANVAX.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Re: addendum to 3" short
Yes, I can say both"10 minutes early/late for class." (Phila.
area/middle-class).
A. Henderson Univ.of Kansas
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 13:13:00 CDT
From: Joan Houston Hall DARE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU
Subject: Re: salugi
Monkey-in-the-middle can become the same as salugi, but it can also start as an
officially sanctioned gym class game, with a circle
Joan Hall, DARE
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 14:22:35 EST
From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU
Subject: Re: salugi
I'm beginning to think (supported by postings like Joan Hall's and comments by
others outside the NYC dialect area) that there's a privative relation between
salug(g)i and monkey-in-the-middle/keepaway. Every instance of the former is
or can be an instance of the latter (modulo the actual speech act of
announcing "Salugi on your hat", etc.), but crucially not vice versa.
Salug(g)i can then be glossed essentially as monkey-in-the-middle with an
unwilling victim. (It's also crucial that the saluggied item be something
belonging to that victim.) For those reared in NYC during the relevant period
(the 1950's?), to come upon an innocent victimless game called
monkey-in-the-middle (or keepaway, which may or may not be the California
equivalent thereof[?]) leads to the inference that the teasing/torture variety
of the game doesn't fall within the scope of these labels, but the more
accurate conclusion is that NYC's salugi/monkey-in-the-middle distinction is
neutralized in the majority dialect, where the latter is simply unspecified
with respect to the [+/- unwilling victim] distinction.
Larry Horn
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 15:09:47 CST
From: Gerald Walton VCGW%UMSVM.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
On Mon, 8 Nov 1993 15:45:47 RSA m. lynne murphy raised questions about
the acceptability of certain sentences:
(1) The tablecloth is three inches short. (meaning there are three inches
of the table that the cloth fails to cover)
Acceptable to me, though adding _too_ would be preferred.
(2) The tablecloth is three inches short of the mark.
Acceptable.
(3) The tablecloth is three inches too short. (universally accepted, right?)
Yes, I would think it universally acceptable.
(4) The package is 7 ounces heavy (and thus can't be shipped via UPS).
Not acceptable.
(5) The baby's bottle is 10 degrees warm (so you'd better cool it off
a bit before giving it to her).
Not acceptable.
"Acceptable" as I have used it means something like "would not be
used by speakers from my part of the country--almost 60 years
in Mississippi. GWW
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 15:17:30 CST
From: Gerald Walton VCGW%UMSVM.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Re: addendum to 3" short
On Mon, 8 Nov 1993 16:02:58 RSA m. lynne murphy said:
Can everyone say (a) and (b)?
(a) I was 10 minutes early for class.
(b) I was 10 minutes late for class.
Yes from me. GWW
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 19:28:56 CST
From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL%MIZZOU1.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
Lynn has already thanked those who responded to her query about a table
cloth being 3" short. Of the questions she asked, that's the only one that
seems to be dialectal and that I say ("short of the mark"not seeming dialectal
to me). My language comes from growing up in South Texas with many neighbors
from all parts of the country. But this expression was also common in the
speech of my parents, both born in Arkansas.
By the way, a table cloth that is 3" short might go over the edges of the
table (i.e., actually cover all of the top) but be shorter than it oughta be
by 3".
DMLance
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 19:24:46 -0800
From: Donald Livingston deljr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
I find myself having interesting reactions to the sentences Lynn posted.
Though I myself would only actually produce a few of those forms, I would
not at all be surprised to hear almost any of them from local speakers
where I grew up, though I would consider some of them careless
speech, that is, that the speaker was not choosing his/her words
particularly carefully. I grew up in Tucson, Arizona (WASP middle class
family). I consider myself to speak standard TV broadcaster English.
(1) The tablecloth is three inches short. (meaning there are three inches
of the table that the cloth fails to cover)
Sounds normal to me in careless speech. I would say it occasionally
(Sorry, Lynne, changed my mind on this one).
(2) The tablecloth is three inches short of the mark.
Sounds grammatically normal to me, though somewhat high style. I would
rarely say it.
(3) The tablecloth is three inches too short. (universally accepted, right?)
Absolutely normal.
If sentence (1) is ok with you, can you also say:
(4) The package is 7 ounces heavy (and thus can't be shipped via UPS).
Sounds normal to me in careless speech. I wouldn't at all be surprised
to hear it at the local post office. I would never say it.
(5) The baby's bottle is 10 degrees warm (so you'd better cool it off
a bit before giving it to her).
Sounds normal in careless speech. I would never say it, though.
Is there anyone for whom (4) and (5) could mean that the weight of the
package equals 7 ounces or the temperature of the baby's bottle equals
10 degrees?
I would not at all be surprised to hear (4) and (5) with these meanings
in careless speech, but would never produce (4) with that meaning and
would only rarely produce (5) with that meaning.
Both (a) and (b) of the addendum are fine with my in all speech registers.
All the best, Don.
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 12:57:27 EST
From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU
Subject: Re: three inches
As I mentioned earlier, my British colleague Caroline Heycock (Glaswegian by
birth) shares the same judgment everyone else has on this, viz. that '3 inches
short' is impeccable, with the understanding 'short by 3 inches'. Indeed,
nobody has reported LACKING this form. So I checked the OED, and sure enough
under 18f of the adjectival listing for 'short' we have:
Preceded by a sb. or an expression of quantity, indicating what is lacking
of the required number or amount.
(Citations include 'We are a lady short' [1893], 'two pounds short in his
cash')
The point is that '3 inches short' is not a dialectal usage (in the sense that
only a specific geographically or socially definable group has it), and that
it's not a DISTINCT usage from that of 'X short', where X is ANY measure
expression whose semantics fits the context.
Larry Horn
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 13:08:04 EST
From: Robert Kelly kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU
Subject: Re: three inches
While I (New York born) find "...short" natural and normal, my wife (Boston
born and raised) understands it but would never perform it, choosing
rather "...too short." So there may be a wiggling isoglossette after all.
Robert Kelly
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 23:48:33 -0700
From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE%ARIZVMS.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
I grew up 150 miles south of Don Lance, on the Mexican border in South Texas
and agree with most of the intuitions posted to date. The paraphrase "short
BY three inches/dollars" seems best to capture the sense.
--Rudy Troike
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 10:18:53 RSA
From: lynne murphy 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA
Subject: three inches
well, the response to my query re: three inches short is
very appreciated. however, so far it doesn't seem that there is
any regionality to the distribution of three inches short,
since everybody seems to think it's ok. am i wrong?
lynne murphy
university of the witwatersrand
104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]witsvma.wits.ac.za
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 07:48:00 EST
From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR%MSU.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
There are indeed some interesting things to be said about 'short.'
First, it is surely not a matter of marked and unmarked. Neither of the pairs
narrow-wide, old-young, and so on fit the pattern 'It was three inches (years)
X' in the sense intended.
Note, however, that 'short' appears to be the only one of these forms which
has a verbal counterpart ('He shorted me three dollars,' 'They shorted me
three pounds,' and so on).
Additionally, this 'short' is surely no ndifferent than a host of other items
which fit this construction: 'It was three inches off,' 'It was three enches
shy,' 'It was three inches over,' 'It was three inches under.' All these
express the intended 'not to the standard or expected' interpretation.
Shouldn't we be looking at this wider range of facts? It strikes me that all
too often when we do dialect work we focus too narrowly on items.
By the way, although I do not think it is particularly important to this
discussion, I am an old lower-middle/upper-working class white man from
southern Indiana (far north side of Louisville, KY).
Dennis Preston
22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 08:52:27 EST
From: Boyd Davis FEN00BHD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNCCVM.UNCC.EDU
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
Lynne, my dialect area - and my responses - match Dennis Preston's.
Dennis, wouldn't the notion of shortlisting fit here? I cannot think of
*longlisting
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 10:28:03 -0700
From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE%ARIZVMS.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Re: three inches
I spoke to a visiting German prof from Dresden the other day, who could
hardly be strongly influenced by American English, and found that she had
the same interpretation of "three inches short".
Do we have any British speakers to ask?
--Rudy Troike
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 15:50:32 -0230
From: "Philip Hiscock, MUN Folklore & Language Archive" philiph[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]KEAN.UCS.MUN.CA
Subject: Place names with 'eye'; Maritime Troytowns
In researching the origin of three Newfoundland placenames, two now
called "Traytown" and one now called "Triton," a local historian
has come upon the same spelling "Troy Town" used for all three at
one time or another in their histories. He asked me for an opinion
and I ventured that their particularly convoluted waterways led
18th and 19th sailors to refer to each place as a "troy town"
(aka "troyton", hence modern "Triton"), meaning maze-like.
I am familiar with the widespread use of "troytown" in
English and Scandinavian placenames for the sites of pre-historic
and medieval mazes cut into turf, etc. One such place was not far
from Poole, out of which port many Newfoundland settlers came.
But I do not know of any such placenames in North America, other than
these three in Newfoundland. Can anyone point me in the direction
of a Troytown (or a Troy) in North America that was not named simply
for classical allusion?
One of these Traytowns is on a small island now called
"Ireland's Eye," the main harbour of which is shaped like a helix or
volute. Convoluted indeed. I suspect the harbour was called the Island's
Eye, a name which folk etymologized into Ireland's Eye by the late 17th
century. I would be stronger in my conviction about this if I knew of some
other placenames, on either side of the Atlantic, with "Eye" referring
to a kind of volute or spiral shape.
Any takers?
Philip Hiscock
MUN Folklore & Language Archive
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St John's, Newfoundland
philiph[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]kean.ucs.mun.ca
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 16:31:39 -0800
From: "Thomas L. Clark" tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU
Subject: Re: 3 inches short
Your message dated: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 23:48:33 -0700
--------
I grew up 150 miles south of Don Lance, on the Mexican border in South Texas
and agree with most of the intuitions posted to date. The paraphrase "short
BY three inches/dollars" seems best to capture the sense.
--Rudy Troike
I grew up 1500 miles north of Don and Rudy, on the Montana/Canadian border.
"3 inches short" doesn't have to be paraphrased, because that's the
unmarked form for me.