Re: OT: Motzarella

On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:43:12 GMT, arnow@xxxxxxxxx (Murray Arnow)
wrote:

chriggs wrote:
Murray Arnow wrote:

chriggs wrote:
Robin Bignall wrote:

Wednesday was a night just like that. Dog and I had a little game of
ball at midnight when he went out for his final pee.

Looking at that second sentence, it is a wonder the Americans and the
British are able to join arms in Afghanistan at all, we express
ourselves so differently. Don't take this personally, Robin, but I
wouldn't know where to start, if I were given the task of translating
it into everyday AmE.

That second sentence isn't the least bit unclear or unidiomatic to me.
Is it possible I've become contaminated with too much AUE?

In spite of my talk of the Golden Era, the essence of AUE is still
sound, but after its contamination by a clamorous salesman several
years back, I've asked the same question of myself, more than once.
Getting back to Robin's sentence, in my version of AmE, it would read
something like, "At midnight, I took the dog out for his final leak of
the day, after which we played some ball". Note that there is no "dog"
without the required article nor the word "pee", when referring to an
animal's micturition.

I still don't think Robbin is distant from the American idiom. Would you
object to the sentence starting with "My dog"? Think of it another way,
would a sentence starting with "Mother and I" sound unidiomatic (I think
we should forego the remaining sentence out of deference to Mum)?

I do admit that BrE is more likely to construct "wife and I," "son and
I," and so on, where AmE isn't. Oddly, the "Mother and I" and "Father
and I" constructions are quite common in AmE. Perhaps "Mother" and
"Father" can be used as proper nouns explains this oddity.

I had thought "Mother and I" and "Father and I" were children of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in AmE, but had faded well
out of use by now. "Wife and I" and "Son and I", both of which are
ghastly, never caught on in America, thank god.

Now, "pee" is still quire commonly used by Americans. I think women
prefer the this word to "piss" or "leak."

I agree completely.
--

Regards,

Chuck Riggs
Near Dublin, Ireland
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: O/T: Top Ten Things Liberals Believe
    ... > Eavesdropping Effort Began Soon After Sept. 11 Attacks ... > e-mail messages between the United States and Afghanistan ... > between Americans and other individuals in the United States ... second sentence in a manner that did not have a different meaning ...
    (rec.arts.theatre.musicals)
  • Re: Endeavour or Endeavor?
    ... I believe Americans would say "named after." ... News to me, thanks for the re-education. ... Formal AmE tends ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: "Bust somebodys ass"
    ... H.L. Mencken called himself bilingual in AmE and BrE. ... Some Americans use "arse" now and then, often (as someone, I think ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: "me (n)either" revisited
    ... Mike Barnes wrote: ... I think in AmE (assuming we're talking about real, spontaneous, ... which precludes the use of 'me'. ... There are a fair number of Americans who speak literary (I *try* to, ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Blatant paradoxes: global warming, ending oil reserves, ending bananas
    ... years thanks to the radiation from global warming. ... Americans: "Awaiting the end of the world by terrorists on December ... pee on the Internet, psychos arised from the graves to torture all ... stood silently and awaited the first terror attack. ...
    (sci.astro)
Loading