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R H Draney
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 3:00 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT |
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Ray Heindl filted:
| Quote: |
Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
The house I grew up in in Chicago (built in the '50s) had a mailbox
built into the wall next to the front door. The mailman put mail in
it from the outside, and we took the mail out from the inside.
My house has a similar arrangement, but for some obscure reason the
opening doesn't go straight into the box. It makes a dogleg which
prevents anything inflexible (magazines, for example) from going
through. So I mounted an ordinary front-opening box[1] to the stoop
railing. This works fine except when new letter carriers show up; they
sometimes use the wall slot instead of the outside box.
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The dogleg was probably added in response to an entirely-too-common prank known
in my childhood: sticking a neighbor's garden hose into the slot and then
turning on the hose bibb before running away...it was considered inelegant to do
this when the neighbor was away from home; protocol demanded that this only be
done at a time when he would actually *see* the water begin to come out onto his
living-room floor....r
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 3:03 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 15:29:41 +0000 (UTC), Salvatore Volatile
<me@privacy.net> wrote:
| Quote: | Tony Cooper wrote:
Thanks once again to aue, another Great Pondial Difference has been
brought to the fore. I can't say this is true for all cities and
states in the US, but I don't think you'll find a residential door in
Florida with a mail opening.
I think they're reasonably common in older US houses, aren't they? I
can't really remember too many specific examples, mind you, but my
grandmother's house in Watertown, Mass. had such an opening. I find it
difficult to believe that such things were completely unknown in Broad
Ripple.
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I didn't take a position on the presence/absence in Indiana. Just
Florida with a wave at the rest of the country. I just don't remember
whether or not they were common in Indianapolis in single-family
residences.
My grandparents lived in a four-unit apartment building in a
neighborhood of apartment buildings. All older buildings. They had a
mail slot, but all doors were at street level and opened to the
street. A little vestibule, but basically open to the street.
| Quote: | When I was living in a house in Ann Arbor, Mich. around 1992-1993, that
house might have had a mail slot in the door, but I can't remember. I do
remember that the mailman (= TCE "carrier"?)
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The ads in the newspaper do refer to "letter carriers", but it's not a
term that I use. The USPS advertises here for contract letter
carriers for certain routes. The contract carriers are not employees
of the USPS, and I guess that means they can't be called "Mailman".
No epaulets, either.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL |
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the Omrud
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 3:24 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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Ray Heindl spake thusly:
| Quote: | Tony Cooper <tony_cooper213@earthlink.net> wrote:
Americans don't usually use "latch" at all unless they are talking
about fence gates. For some reason, fence gates have latches, but
that's the only instance I can think of where the device that holds a
door closed is routinely called a "latch". Locksmiths may talk of
latches, though. I've never had a prolonged conversation with one.
Never noticed that before, but now that you mention it I don't recall
hearing the thing on a normal door called a latch. But in my
experience latch *is* used as a verb in reference to a door; e.g. "Is
the door latched?". The thing that holds a cabinet door closed might
be called a latch, though I think "catch" is more common.
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Wife, with her Yorkshire dialect, calls that thing (the latch or
catch) a "sneck". This is also a verb: "Have you snecked the door?"
--
David
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the Omrud
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 3:27 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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Tony Cooper spake thusly:
| Quote: | This brings to mind a curious - to me - phrase used routinely in the
US: latch-key kids. A latch-key kid is a child who has parents that
work and comes home after school to a house without adults. The child
has a key to the house.
The curious thing about the phrase is that "latch key" is not a common
US term in any other context. It brings to mind the image of the
British custom of suspending the key from a string fed through the
mail slot in the door.
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I would say that the UK experience is the same. We have the term
"latch key kid", although it isn't really used any more as all
children have keys to their homes these days and because there's
essentially no stigma in a practice which is the norm in the majority
of families. Nearly 40 years ago, I got a house key when I turned 11
and went to grammar school, not least because I left the house
*after* my mother, rather than specifically because I was going home
to an empty house.
--
David
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 5:45 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:27:29 GMT, the Omrud <usenet.omrud@gmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | I would say that the UK experience is the same. We have the term
"latch key kid", although it isn't really used any more as all
children have keys to their homes these days and because there's
essentially no stigma in a practice which is the norm in the majority
of families. Nearly 40 years ago, I got a house key when I turned 11
and went to grammar school, not least because I left the house
*after* my mother, rather than specifically because I was going home
to an empty house.
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I was never given a house key when I was a child, but only because the
house door was never locked. There were bolts on the inside of the
doors that could be shot to secure the door, but they were used at
night (if at all) when everyone was home.
I did have key to my grandparent's apartment. They occupied the upper
two floors of a four-unit apartment building. The front door was at
(what we call) ground level and one had to walk up a flight of stairs
to reach the apartment. The building was constructed before entry
buzzers were used, so someone had to come down to open the door.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 7:06 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:03:19 GMT, Tony Cooper
<tony_cooper213@earthlink.net> wrote:
| Quote: | The ads in the newspaper do refer to "letter carriers", but it's not a
term that I use. The USPS advertises here for contract letter
carriers for certain routes. The contract carriers are not employees
of the USPS, and I guess that means they can't be called "Mailman".
No epaulets, either.
|
The AmE word for a postman is "mailman", end of story. You're as far
out on a limb here, and about to come crashing to the ground, as you
were when saying "mobile phone" is the AmE term for what the vast
majority of Americans call either a "cell phone" or, ugh, a "cell".
Where do you get your material, Coop? If out of your ass, as often
seems to be the case, I suggest there are better sources.
--
Charles Riggs |
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 7:06 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 04:37:58 +0100, Charles Riggs <chriggs@éircom.net>
wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:03:19 GMT, Tony Cooper
tony_cooper213@earthlink.net> wrote:
The ads in the newspaper do refer to "letter carriers", but it's not a
term that I use. The USPS advertises here for contract letter
carriers for certain routes. The contract carriers are not employees
of the USPS, and I guess that means they can't be called "Mailman".
No epaulets, either.
The AmE word for a postman is "mailman", end of story. You're as far
out on a limb here, and about to come crashing to the ground, as you
were when saying "mobile phone" is the AmE term for what the vast
majority of Americans call either a "cell phone" or, ugh, a "cell".
Where do you get your material, Coop? If out of your ass, as often
seems to be the case, I suggest there are better sources.
|
You do understand that if an employee of the USPS joins a union, it
will be the NALC (National Association of Letter Carriers)? Or the
NRLCA (National Rural Letter Carriers' Association)? (Punctuation as
they punctuate it) Or that the USPS refers to the people who deliver
the mail as letter carriers?
The limb seems sturdy enough to me.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 2:54 pm
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 04:17:03 GMT, Tony Cooper
<tony_cooper213@earthlink.net> wrote:
| Quote: | On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 04:37:58 +0100, Charles Riggs <chriggs@éircom.net
wrote:
On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:03:19 GMT, Tony Cooper
tony_cooper213@earthlink.net> wrote:
The ads in the newspaper do refer to "letter carriers", but it's not a
term that I use. The USPS advertises here for contract letter
carriers for certain routes. The contract carriers are not employees
of the USPS, and I guess that means they can't be called "Mailman".
No epaulets, either.
The AmE word for a postman is "mailman", end of story. You're as far
out on a limb here, and about to come crashing to the ground, as you
were when saying "mobile phone" is the AmE term for what the vast
majority of Americans call either a "cell phone" or, ugh, a "cell".
Where do you get your material, Coop? If out of your ass, as often
seems to be the case, I suggest there are better sources.
You do understand that if an employee of the USPS joins a union, it
will be the NALC (National Association of Letter Carriers)? Or the
NRLCA (National Rural Letter Carriers' Association)? (Punctuation as
they punctuate it) Or that the USPS refers to the people who deliver
the mail as letter carriers?
|
It wasn't at all clear to me you were referring to USPS English when
you wrote 'that means they can't be called "Mailman"', with the
implication they generally aren't called mailmen anyone, since you
also wrote "The ads in the newspaper do refer to "letter carriers"'.
I assumed you were referring to AmE at large, not to a tiny subset of
AmE speakers, and I'm still not so sure you weren't.
We could give you the benefit of the doubt, I suppose, with this
suggestion so as to avoid confusion the next time: we already have
initialisms for several national varieties of English in AUE, plus
TCE; perhaps we need to add "USPS-E".
| Quote: | The limb seems sturdy enough to me.
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Only if you're not claiming they are "letter carriers" in AmE, but are
"mailmen" instead.
--
Charles Riggs |
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Mark Brader
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:18 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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"Brian":
| Quote: | My Friend The Executive, who lives just a few miles from me, has the
box at the curb arrangement. He has to remind people not to park too
close to it on Saturdays ...
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Saturdays. I remember when mail was still delivered on Saturdays <sigh>.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | The real trouble with this world of ours is... that
msb@vex.net | it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. --Chesterton |
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Mark Brader
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:27 am
Post subject: Latch (was: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: ...) |
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Tony Cooper:
| Quote: | Americans don't usually use "latch" at all unless they are talking
about fence gates. For some reason, fence gates have latches, but
that's the only instance I can think of where the device that holds a
door closed is routinely called a "latch".
|
What about the trunk of a car?
Ray Heindl:
| Quote: | Never noticed that before, but now that you mention it I don't recall
hearing the thing on a normal door called a latch. But in my
experience latch *is* used as a verb in reference to a door; e.g. "Is
the door latched?".
|
The corresponding device on a car door, in my experience, always
operates in two stages. I presume this is intended to help keep them
from opening accidentally in some circumstances. But it means that
if you don't use enough force when closing the door, it finishes a
short distance from the fully closed position and (normally) stays
there until it's either reopened or pushed hard from the outside
(you can't manage enough force pulling from the inside), as I'm sure
everyone knows.
Well, the only term I know for this improperly closed state is "on
the half-latch". But I picked it up from my parents, so I don't
know whether it's American or British usage. Anyone?
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | There is no step function between "safe" and "unsafe".
msb@vex.net | -- Jeff Janes
My text in this article is in the public domain. |
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Mark Brader
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:29 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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Tony Cooper writes:
| Quote: | I did have key to my grandparent's apartment.
|
You know, most people would specifically say "grandmother" or "grandfather"
there, whichever was the case.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "Where do you want Microsoft to go today?"
msb@vex.net -- Rick Ross |
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 6:17 am
Post subject: Re: Latch (was: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: ...) |
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On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 23:27:22 -0000, msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
| Quote: | Tony Cooper:
Americans don't usually use "latch" at all unless they are talking
about fence gates. For some reason, fence gates have latches, but
that's the only instance I can think of where the device that holds a
door closed is routinely called a "latch".
What about the trunk of a car?
|
Yes, trunk latch would be used. We just don't mention them very
often. Same with door latches on the automobile. Some use "latch" to
describe the device that fastens a cabinet closed.
"Latch", or "latches", isn't unheard, but neither is often heard.
I've heard the expression "Is the door on the latch?" (meaning "Is the
door locked?") but I don't remember if I read it or heard it.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL |
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 6:31 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 23:29:31 -0000, msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
| Quote: | Tony Cooper writes:
I did have key to my grandparent's apartment.
You know, most people would specifically say "grandmother" or "grandfather"
there, whichever was the case.
|
Why?
"Grandparent's" is eminently reasonable to me to describe the place
where both my grandfather and grandmother lived. I would describe my
own home as my "parent's" home when I lived there.
I may be out of step here, but I really don't see why.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL |
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 6:39 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT [was Re: If I Were the Copy Ed |
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Tony Cooper wrote:
| Quote: | (Mark Brader) wrote:
Tony Cooper writes:
I did have key to my grandparent's apartment.
You know, most people would specifically say "grandmother" or
"grandfather" there, whichever was the case.
Why?
"Grandparent's" is eminently reasonable to me to describe the place
where both my grandfather and grandmother lived. I would describe my
own home as my "parent's" home when I lived there.
I may be out of step here, but I really don't see why.
|
It shoud be "parents'" and "grandparents'" for the plural possessive.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Evan Kirshenbaum
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 6:53 am
Post subject: Re: OT: Who's running the NYT |
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Tony Cooper <tony_cooper213@earthlink.net> writes:
| Quote: | On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 23:29:31 -0000, msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
Tony Cooper writes:
I did have key to my grandparent's apartment.
You know, most people would specifically say "grandmother" or
"grandfather" there, whichever was the case.
Why?
"Grandparent's" is eminently reasonable to me to describe the place
where both my grandfather and grandmother lived.
|
But why refer to just one of them if both lived there?
| Quote: | I would describe my own home as my "parent's" home when I lived
there.
I may be out of step here, but I really don't see why.
|
Most of us would have said "grandparents'" and "parents'".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The skinny models whose main job is
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |to display clothes aren't hired for
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |their sex appeal. They're hired
|for their resemblance to a
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |coat-hanger.
(650)857-7572 | Peter Moylan
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |
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