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#6190 09/13/00 01:22 PM
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>during the Great Sheep
Famine in the last century

AS, just a reminder that this sort of phrase is now ambiguous...


#6191 09/13/00 01:39 PM
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>during the Great Sheep
Famine in the last century

AS, just a reminder that this sort of phrase is now ambiguous...


I'll let Jackie handle this one....


#6192 09/13/00 02:29 PM
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I'm sure I don't know what tsuwm means. We studied the
Great Sheep Famine when I was but a girl. We learned that
the Aussies had to go Out Back and feed those poor little
sheep kiwis to keep them alive. Ewe do know, don't ewe,
that I would never try to pull the wool over your eyes?


#6193 09/13/00 08:25 PM
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please. . .no more sheep jokes


#6194 09/13/00 10:38 PM
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We learned that the Aussies had to go Out Back and feed those poor little sheep kiwis to keep them alive.

'Fess up, Jackie, you're one of those Yanks who thought that the Sydney Harbour Bridge links Sydney and Auckland, aren't you? "Aussies feeding their sheep kiwis" - pray, tell, where would these Aussies obtain the kiwis? It's really hard for me to write "kiwis" since I have got so used to following the accepted standard Maori usage that does not add "s" to plurals - hence one Maori, two Maori, one kiwi, two kiwi. "Kiwi" on the other hand, as a designation for NZers, that we do owe to Aussies. It was first used by Aussie diggers in the ANZAC campaigns, and stuck. Having become Anglicised, "Kiwi" does get an "s" - I am one of nearly four million Kiwis.


#6195 09/14/00 12:57 AM
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I am one of nearly four million Kiwis.

Oh-h, Maxie, she said, batting her eyelashes, then your
ancestors were some of those heroes, weren't they??
Making the ultimate sacrifice for the good of their country.
Only instead of cannon fodder, they were sheep fodder.




#6196 09/14/00 04:46 AM
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In reply to:

>during the Great Sheep
Famine in the last century

AS, just a reminder that this sort of phrase is now ambiguous...


In reply to:

I'm sure I don't know what tsuwm means.


While not being a tsuwmologist or a Sumerologist, I think the ambiguity far from being over there in a box, lies in the words "last century". Do we follow the more logical count whereby this is the last year of the twentieth century, or do we say "Vox populi vox dei" and count it as the first year of the twenty-first century?



Bingley



Bingley
#6197 09/14/00 05:01 AM
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Do we follow the more logical count whereby this is the last year of the twentieth century
Do you mean that there are actually people who think that this isn't still the twentieth century? Poor benighted souls, I pity them.


#6198 09/14/00 08:11 AM
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<If you didn't know, N and 5 are also official sponsors of this year's Olympic games in Sydney, Australia.>

I can't remember who it was who pointed out the fatuousness of the habit of saying "London, England" - so we don't get confused with London, Ontario?!!? Unfortunately I do think its a US-inspired habit, butone non-Americans should definitely not emulate - reasonable enough if you need to differentiate between Washington state and Washington DC, I suppose.


#6199 09/14/00 10:56 AM
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Bingley, mea culpa ... I should have been precise and written "the 19th century." I am among those who will be celebrating the beginning of the 21st century and the third millennium A.D. on Jan 1, 2001.

And here I was considering tsuwm was pointing out a completely different ambiguity, one which the well-bred lady in me won't specify.


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