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#8761 10/26/00 01:32 PM
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jack squat to do with gorillas

I rest my case.

"Mogambo" = "Let's get the hell out of here!"
(this translation for under 18s)


#8762 10/26/00 01:46 PM
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I hope you'll credit your co-translator?


#8763 10/26/00 06:29 PM
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... none of which has jack squat to do with gorillas or mogambo.

Ain't no one never told ya nothin' about it being wrong for to be using double negatives?


#8764 10/26/00 07:50 PM
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Max says it is "wrong for to be using double negatives."

One assumes this a critique of the construction "jack squat." One assumes that his objection is that "jack" has the same meaning as squat, permitting one to say "He don't know jack" and "He don't know squat" without altering the meaning of either. Not so, learned one. The clause "You don't know jack" is a shortening of "You don't know jack shit" where the last word is omitted for decency's sake. Squat is a colloquial verb meaning "to defecate" and a noun meaning "defecation." Thus, the construction "jack squat" restores the entirety of the clause, using a synonym in the last position. Eh?





#8765 10/26/00 07:54 PM
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Oh how good it is to be amongst true intellectuals!


#8766 10/26/00 08:10 PM
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Agreed. The recent rise in the number of false intellectuals is a cause for great concern.


#8767 10/26/00 08:10 PM
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tsuwm>more links than a dozen discalced nuns.
jackie>what does being discalced have to do with posting links, she said with the
distinct feeling of walking straight into a trap?

exactly nothing. and don't go walking discalced near any traps.

---
how many posts would Emily Post post
if Emily Post could post posts?!


#8768 10/26/00 08:14 PM
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Actually it was the use of "none of which" that prompted my jocular correction. I understood the phrase "Jack squat", and greatly appreciated the bowdlerisation. Since it seems that "Jack squat" means basically "nothing" I read the line to say "none of which has nothing to do with ..." I am of course rushing in where angels fear to tread, as my grasp of grammar could most flatteringly be called rudimentary. If I am as mistaken as I expect to be, your occupation, and my Mickey heritage would seem to make mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa doubly apt.


#8769 10/26/00 11:28 PM
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The recent rise in the number of false intellectuals

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!






#8770 10/27/00 03:37 AM
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Misereatur vestri omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis, perducat vos ad vitam aeternam. Amen.


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