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#53230 01/21/02 06:41 AM
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We have no idea why people pronounce it kwibec.

Because in English 'qu' is pronounced 'kw'?


#53231 01/21/02 11:29 AM
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Is it just me?

Looks to me like it's just you, but I might suggest, if symptoms persist, that you try starting the cut and paste in the second column and fill in the letter from the first column manually.


#53232 01/21/02 02:20 PM
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"England and America are two countries separated by the same language."
-George Bernard Shaw, "Reader's Digest", November, 1942

Sites on Internet favor Shavian origin by about three to one. I wonder if the Readers' Digest gave source of the quote.


#53233 01/21/02 02:23 PM
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Off-licences are so -called in England because over the door there will be a notice which says "john Doe licencedto sell alcoholic liquor for consumption OFF the premises" a pub will have the same notice except OFF is replaced by ON , but why pubs don't get called ON- licences I do not know.

the Duncster


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#53234 01/21/02 02:29 PM
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England and America are two countries divided by a common language.

Yeah, this one's always puzzled me. I'd heard Churchill, Shaw and HL Mencken. Never this Shavian feller.

And wow, thanks for the link (and the links contained therein).


#53235 01/21/02 02:52 PM
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Shavian? ask MaxQ, he started it. I thought it had something to do with GBS never shaving.


#53236 01/21/02 04:39 PM
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Believing in attributions is always a tricky business. Once you have a reputation as a pundit, people will credit all kinds of witty remarks to you.

I've heard
-- "If I'd'a known I was going to live this long, I'd'a taken better care of myself!"
for example, ascribed to Eubie Blake, and to Winston Churchill, and to Mark Twain. (But not to George Burns or Bob Hope. Yet. There seems to be a fairly limited overlap.)


#53237 01/21/02 07:06 PM
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"If I'd'a known I was going to live this long, I'd'a taken better care of myself!"

Actually, Mickey Mantle, the New York Yankee hi wow!baseball great was quoted as saying this when he went public with his alcohol problem in the early 90's. And he would often offer this remark in many filmed interviews of the time. It seems most of the men in his family had a history of dying early (before 40) of cancer (Hodgkins, I believe) and he decided he was going to 'live it up' while he could, and never imagined he would live until his 60's. He also said that if it wasn't for his conspicuous consumption he might have had an even greater career! (not to mention that he played most of his career on bleeding legs, due to some kind of bone disease) Of course, he may have picked that saying up from an earlier quote.


#53238 01/21/02 11:13 PM
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We have no idea why people pronounce it kwibec.

Because in English 'qu' is pronounced 'kw'?

You are right that qu is generally pronounced kw but as we now see - not always. As with any name you try to pronounce it correctly. With an unusual spelling or sounding name people have to be corrected/informed, that is true, that is why they turn to a dictionary. You'd think the dictionary would try to get it right. People rely on a dictionary to be accurate.



#53239 01/21/02 11:26 PM
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You'd think the dictionary would try to get it right.

You would think! If the dictionary had Quebec in it at all. I just checked my three copies, and none list Quebec!

One other thing, my aunt who came from Montreal, always pronounced it more like "kay-beck" and that is how I have pronounced it since.


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