Re: Looking for two members

On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 07:08:06 +1000, "Alex J Steed"
<alexjsteed@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"The Scarlet Parsnip" <The_Scarlet_Parsnip@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8jume2t5d1e7hhjdon492kaqheu0rliiq1@xxxxxxxxxx
On 22 Aug 2006 14:06:52 -0700, "Tall Guy"
<chris.robinson666@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


There are two Ns in Britannia. And three in Ninny.


DAMN
(it DID look wrong when I typed it)

And you know what? if it were only Yanks in this ng, he probably would have
gotten away with it. Thank the lord for countries that still speak English
and not 'American'




Hmmmm, I suppose it was bound to happen... someone who isn't aware of
my love for all things British (from music to Mrs. Peel) missing the
irony and mirthful exchange between Tallguy myself... where I
habitually and happily accept the role as fool.

The thing only MORE foolish would be a post condemning the American
tongue (no puns)... we are, after all "Two Nations Seperated By A
Common Language."

?Two nations separated by a common language.?

Sometimes the inquirer asks, ?Was it Wilde or Shaw?? The answer
appears to be: both. In The Canterville Ghost (1887), Wilde wrote: ?We
have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of
course, language?. However, the 1951 Treasury of Humorous Quotations
(Esar & Bentley) quotes Shaw as saying: ?England and America are two
countries separated by the same language?, but without giving a
source. The quote had earlier been attributed to Shaw in Reader?s
Digest (November 1942).

Much the same idea occurred to Bertrand Russell (Saturday Evening
Post, 3 June 1944): ?It is a misfortune for Anglo-American friendship
that the two countries are supposed to have a common language?, and in
a radio talk prepared by Dylan Thomas shortly before his death (and
published after it in The Listener, April 1954) - European writers and
scholars in America were, he said, ?up against the barrier of a common
language?.

Inevitably this sort of dubious attribution has also been seen:
?Winston Churchill said our two countries were divided by a common
language? (The Times, 26 January 1987; The European, 22 November
1991.)

Damn clever those Britsihers. Thank the Lord they are mostly short.




.

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